


The Really Ridiculously Good Looking Summer Festival

by VerboseWordsmith



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Companionable Snark, Ed-level cursing, Ensemble Cast, FMA Big Bang 2016, Failboats In Love, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Modern day alchemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 45,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7960762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseWordsmith/pseuds/VerboseWordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quasi-indie newcomers, Fullmetal Alchemist, just hit number one with their second single on the Amestris Hot 100 Rock chart and they've been added to the lineup of this summer's Transmuted Tour. It's a pretty awesome time to be part of the band, between the album doing well and, even more awesomely, getting to tour on a real bus. Ed (and Al, let's be honest, it's mostly Al) is hoping this might be the beginning of the end of their van days. Hopefully there won't be too much more of personally hauling their gear everywhere and trying to sleep on seatbelts and guitar pedals while someone drives through the night. </p><p>But first, they have to survive sharing a bus with their labelmates Decaydance and the grueling (but awesome) slog through forty-odd summer tour dates. Ed's hoping no one dies or embarrasses themselves too badly in front of their musical heroes, because they have three months of tour to get through, another album to record, and they're probably going to run into some of these bands in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I almost called this fic "I Became Friends With Xyriath And All You Get Is This Stupid Story Written About Bands" which tells you a _lot_ about its origin. But that didn't abbreviate as well and I wasn't sure the Fall Out Boy reference was as obvious or funny as I thought, so instead I went with my original idea.
> 
> This whole thing is the result of [Xyriath](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath) encouraging me to make bad decisions, my previous love affair with bandom, themadlurker's enabling, and listening to way too much pop punk. I wrote the majority of the first partial draft of this in about 36 hours, _right_ on the deadline to send stuff in for FMA Big Bang and up until then, the 15k or so of it I turned in was the longest thing I had ever written. Then I had to fill in my missing scenes, expand stuff and edit and here we are with a long, self-indulgent fic about the FMA cast as a bunch of pop punk/alternative/punk/scene bands. You're welcome?
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** There are multiple breaks from reality here; some are intentional, some I didn't realize until I filled every bunk in the bus and at that point, I just had to go with it. I haven't actually been to Warped, nor am I a musician so a lot of what I've written is either informed by shows I have actually been to, friends of mine who Do Music Stuff, the 8 billion primers bandom had on every topic you could think of that might be connected to the music industry/touring, bandom fic conventions and fanon circa 2009-2011, and my google-fu skills. Or I just made it up completely. I fictionalized a lot of actual music industry stuff and shamelessly stole the in-story lyrics and song titles from a combination of Panic! at the Disco/Panic at the Disco, The Hush Sound, Fall Out Boy and in one notable case, Owl City.
> 
> The title is 100% referencing a specific Cobra Starship tour and god knows how many bandom jokes and references I slipped in here; once I decided on the name of Ling's band I gave myself free reign to write whatever the hell I want. I'm not sorry.

Ed watched The Citadel play from the merchandise table, riding out the last of his performance high. No one was at the merch table right now, since the majority of the crowd had actually come to see The Citadel, but they'd been busy between sets. Winry and Ed had stashed their guitars in the tiny green room, then rushed back out to help Garfiel move merch and sign a few things while Paninya was breaking her drum kit down with Al's help. There was a small window between the end of Fullmetal Alchemist's set and when The Citadel's set up got interesting enough to draw people away from the bar and the merch tables and they did their best to take advantage of it by sticking the two most recognizable faces of the band at the merch table. _Someone_ had to help Garfiel and Ed was banned from touching Paninya's drum kit.

Paninya was fucking paranoid about her drums. She repeatedly told them that she didn't want Ed's automail hand anywhere near her kit until it was safely packed in road cases. He'd only scratched the finish _once_ , and that had been as much Paninya and Al's fault for shoving the stupid snare drum at him without warning, but whatever. Make one mistake, they never let you live it down.

At least it got Ed out of the worst parts of packing up.

Right now, though, no one was looking for a copy of their CD or a hoodie, so Ed could watch the headliners and judge Isaac McDougal's performance. After a couple weeks of touring with The Citadel, Ed had determined that McDougal was a genuinely good bassist with a decent voice, that the band wrote charmingly mediocre lyrics, and that they put on a fun show. They were pretty good, but nothing special. Ed didn't get why they were so popular, but it didn't really matter _why_ , just that they were.

Ed was just grateful his band had been asked to open for The Citadel this tour. A bigger audience meant more people who could potentially become long-term Fullmetal Alchemist fans, plus more people to sell stuff to. The Citadel's fans seemed to tolerate Ed and his band pretty well, maybe even like them. The audience at least bought enough merch to keep the Fullmetal Alchemist team in gas and halfway decent snacks, which was better than Ed had actually expected.

Winry had already lost interest in The Citadel's set (so had Ed, if he was honest) and was busy with her phone, probably texting Sheska. Garfiel had started flirting with The Citadel's merch guy again and Ed hoped the two of them would _finally_ hook up. With Paninya and Al fighting round eleventy thousand of their ongoing war between Paninya's kit and the band's trailer, Ed was bored. He kind of hoped something interesting would happen, or that he'd come up with a good excuse to get away from the merch table and a set he'd seen too many times already.

His phone started vibrating, and Ed was reminded that the universe wasn't always cold and uncaring. When he saw _who_ was calling, though, he remembered that the universe had a horrible sense of humor.

Ed grabbed Winry's arm, "Izumi's calling; get Garfiel back at the table and meet me backstage."

Winry's eyes widened, and she stood, shoving her phone in her back pocket. Izumi was a pretty hands-off manager in general, even more so when they were on tour. To call at night, when she knew they were either on stage or busy with other stuff? That probably didn't mean anything good.

"Hi Izumi," Ed said once he was safely backstage. "What's going on?"

"Have any of you looked at this week's charts?" Izumi asked brusquely.

"Uh, no? Are they out?"

"It's Tuesday," she told him. "So yes. Get the rest of your band and take a look at them. I'll wait."

Ed had a bad feeling about this. Fullmetal Alchemist's current single, " _Icarus and the Sun_ " was doing pretty well, but their album, _Caduceus_ , was very slowly climbing the alternative and digital charts. They'd been bouncing between the mid and upper 20s for a couple weeks now and it was totally possible they'd dropped out of them entirely. Ed really hoped Izumi wasn't calling with bad news like that (though, that was better than getting a call with bad news about his mom, or Granny Pinako, or Paninya's grandfather). Ed met Winry near the venue's propped open back doors. Al and Paninya were just outside in the slightly sketchy alley serving as a temporary parking lot, playing gear tetris with their trailer.

"Win, pull up the music charts." She raised an eyebrow at Ed, and he shrugged. "Izumi said we needed to look at them."

"Guys, come here and take a look at these," Winry called out to their bandmates. The four of them gathered around her phone.

"Which charts are we looking for?" Ed asked Izumi.

"Put me on speaker," Izumi ordered him, and Ed obeyed. "One of you needs to pull up the rock singles."

Winry did, and it took them a second to realize what they were seeing.

"Holy _shit_!" Paninya shouted. "This is, _fuck_." She shook her head disbelievingly, grinning like an idiot. Ed probably had the same stupid expression his face and Winry gripped Al's forearms, already jumping up and down in excitement.

"I take it you've seen the charts now," Izumi said dryly enough that it came across even on speaker.

"We're fucking _awesome_ ," Ed declared. "Number fucking one in the entire damn country, god _damn_ we're good."

"It's impressive," Izumi agreed. "Don't get cocky; almost anyone can be a one hit wonder. It's when you sustain the top spot that it actually starts to matter. And it's just " _Icarus and the Sun_ " that's number one. _Caduceus_ is still lagging in the 20s on everything but the digital charts."

"What the fuck ever." Ed waved his hand dismissively, like Izumi could see it. "Number one rock song in Amestris, that's badass. Not bad for an indie band's first album."

"Keep it up and your label might throw some real money at you for the next one," Izumi said. "Now, how's the tour going?"

"It's awesome!" Al practically shouted in Ed's ear. He held the phone up higher in vague hopes of saving his hearing. Not that fronting a band helped with that; they'd upgraded a couple of their amps and their speakers with their dirty, wonderful label money and Winry had insisted they switch to an in-ear monitor system now they were kinda regularly playing outside East City (which offered some ear protection on top of making sure they sounded good), but Ed was pretty sure he was still going to be half-deaf by the time he turned thirty.

"People really like how we reworked " _The Death of Beauty,_ " and Garfiel's running low on buttons and t-shirts," Winry said from behind Ed. She grabbed his phone and put in on a road case so they could all be heard.

"The van fucking sucks," Paninya added. "Like, if Winry wasn't a mechanic, we'd be screwed. We're gonna have to fix a bunch of stuff when we get home."

"I still think we should get a new van," Al said. "We're doing okay and this one just...it keeps breaking down and it's uncomfortable."

"It's a _van_ ," Ed pointed out, rolling his eyes. "And it's not our fault you're a freakish giant who can't fit on a bench seat."

"Discomfort aside," Izumi interrupted before they could start bickering again. "No one's deathly ill or playing with broken automail or homesick or secretly plotting to murder a bandmate, right?"

"Well, it's not a secret, exactly," Paninya chirped. "Ed knows how I'm going to kill him if he keeps rushing the second verse on " _Silver Luck_ " or eats all the chocolate bits of the trail mix again." 

"Hey, you said you bought that for the protein and vitamins and shit from the nuts and dried fruit!"

"Children," Izumi interrupted again and Ed could just picture her sitting at her desk, rubbing her temples. They honestly didn't try to make her life difficult; Izumi was an awesome band manager and it was in their best interest to keep her happy, since she was sort of the reason they were even on tour right now and had a record deal and stuff. Paninya was just _the_ _worst_ , even worse than _Winry_ was, and until Ed met her working as a session drummer at the crappy studio in Rush Valley they recorded their album in he didn't think that was possible for anyone to drive him as crazy as Winry did. Izumi couldn't hold it against Ed; everyone in this band except Al was a total pain in the ass. They were awesome, and he never wanted to play with anyone else, but they were still _the worst_.

"How do you feel about touring this summer?" Izumi asked them, and Ed had known her long enough now that he could hear the amusement in her voice. Something either awesome or horrible was in store for them, he knew it.

"Depends," Ed said cautiously. "Where would we be touring? And for how long?"

"Late May to mid-August," Izumi said promptly. She probably had a schedule open in front of her. "National, maybe with a couple dates in Aerugo if your passports are all valid."

"What's the catch?" Al asked, almost as suspicious as Ed. "Does it start before we can fix the van and sort out sublet stuff for the summer?"

"Ah—" Izumi sounded surprised, like they'd caught her off-guard about something. "Actually, I have to check that; I keep forgetting how much the industry's changed in just a few years. Most of my bands have been in a different place financially and logistically at this point in their career."

Ed heard the clicking of laptop keys.

"Okay, so, if you head straight back to East City after your Aquroya date, you should have a couple days to sleep and do laundry, or you could miss the first couple of dates and get say, a week off? And maybe enough time to do some press. The label can fly their social media girl, what's her name, the one with the glasses who loves books? _Her_ , in and do a quick YouTube video, maybe talk to...let me set it up, that'll work out better for everyone."

"I don't know if we can get the funds together to deal with summer storage and fix the van in time," Winry said worriedly. "Like, I'd love to tour, but we're going to need a couple parts for the van and I'm not sure I can turn right around and cover gas and food immediately. Not for something that big."

"Don't worry about the van," Izumi said and Ed could hear that amusement again. "Find somewhere to park it for a couple months, the Transmuted Tour got in touch. They want you guys to join them and since Decaydance is already on the lineup, Powered by Noodles wants to put you guys on their bus with a couple of label people."

"Oh my god, _Transmuted_!" Winry shrieked the same time Al yelled "Oh my god, a bus!"

Paninya just yelled something unintelligible and started jumping around with Al. Winry half-crushed Ed in a strangle-hug, but it was cool, he was too busy swinging her around and punching the air. Fucking _Transmuted_ , fuck yes.

"So that's a yes?" Izumi half-shouted; Ed grabbed his phone off the road case and held it up so she could hear his cheering bandmates more clearly.

"Fuck yes! E-mail us whatever we need to know, we've gotta celebrate and shit. Fucking number one and Transmuted! This is even _better_ than getting signed."

As awesome as it was to have a song hit number one and as fucking cool as it was to get asked to play on Transmuted, Ed and his bandmates still had to finish packing up their stuff and start the drive to their next show. They weren't magically famous overnight and they had almost two weeks supporting The Citadel left.

Every show was fast; a brilliant whirl of color and energy that exhausted Ed as much as it electrified him. The endless time between shows, slowly crossing the country, dragged on, but it was okay, it was _equivalent_. Ed wouldn't fly so high if the boring parts weren't there to ground him.

Besides, as awesome as Ed's job was, it was still a _job_. He drove his shifts, he helped set their gear up, he sold merch, he played nice with assholes and in return, Ed got to lose himself in his music and the crowd every night.

Tour was tour though, and by the end of it they were all getting more excited about going home and sleeping in their beds than they were about seeing new towns. _Playing_ was still the best thing ever, but they needed the break to recharge and get ready for Transmuted.

Ed slept for about three days when they got back to East City, then started his laundry.

Fucking laundry was the worst part of tour. Other than the endless driving and sleep deprivation and living off gas station food. And having to wrangle Winry and Paninya's gear. Fucking drum kit was going to kill them all one day if Winry's fucking _cables_ and stupid collection of pedals didn't. Ed kept his set up pretty simple, as did Al. They weren't as in love with effects pedals as _certain_ bandmates. It was totally worth it, though. When they were on stage, Winry sounded awesome when she had all her equipment set up right. It was just a giant pain in the ass getting it from point A to point B.

Laundry though. Definitely the worst part of coming home from tour.

He had a duffle bag's worth of stuff he kind of wanted to burn; none of it had been been washed in about a week and he sweat like a motherfucker under the lights. Burning it sounded like a way better plan than laundry, but it was going to be cheaper to wash it than to buy new stuff. Plus, these jeans were tour-tested and approved and shit. They'd survive Transmuted.

Probably.

"Brother, you look like you want to kill something," Al said when Ed stomped his way back into their apartment.

"Nah, pretty sure it's already dead," Ed said and flopped down next to Al on their ratty couch.

"Laundry?" Al asked sympathetically.

"Yeah," Ed sighed. "How much crap can we bring with us on an almost three month tour?"

"I think it's less how much stuff and more how much _space_ ," Al said. "Remember, we're sharing the bus with Decaydance, who have an extra person, plus some crew. And someone from the label."

"I think the label's stealing Garfiel from us," Ed speculated. "I didn't think we were gonna be able to bring him, but he texted about coordinating our rides to where we're joining the tour?"

"I think it's just for Transmuted," Al said. "Izumi mentioned that we're probably sharing tour management with Decaydance and it's not like the label can justify sending a bunch of people to help staff their tent, you know? Makes sense to stick both bands’ merch in with the Powered by Noodles stuff and share staff."

"And to think we thought getting signed was gonna make us rich and give us minions," Ed said with a head shake.

"Might still make us rich enough to cover a deposit on a better apartment when we get back," Al said optimistically.

When Ed (and the rest of them) had signed the contract with Powered by Noodles, he hadn't known, exactly, how it was going to change his life. It was a given that it would change things, but everything outside the albums had been unclear.

Fullmetal Alchemist signed a three record deal that was pretty straightforward. The label would pay for the recording, promotion, and distribution of three albums, with the option to extend their contract after Album #2. There were options for Winry and Ed to both record solo albums, which was pretty brilliant maneuvering on Izumi and their lawyer's end. All things considered, Izumi had gotten them a _damn_ good deal, practically unheard of nowadays.

She got the label to take over the promotion and distribution of _Caduceus_ , Fullmetal Alchemist's first album— _and_ Ed, Al, and Winry kept all the rights, since they'd written and recorded it by themselves. As the session drummer, Paninya got some kind of royalties, and now that she was all officially and legally part of the band, she was going to get an equal share in royalties off any other albums she helped them write and record. They'd had a pretty decent signing bonus, enough that they'd been able to buy the van, upgrade some of their gear, and go on a couple tours.

The label had sprung for a kickass music video for their second single, " _Icarus and the Sun"_ that, to date, had been Ed's absolute favorite thing about being an Actual Signed Rock Star. Between the " _Silver Luck"_ video Izumi's intern Mason had done for free last summer and its moderate-budget sequel (also directed by Mason), the band started getting some serious attention. _Caduceus_ was doing really well, considering. People really liked the singles, and Ed was genuinely looking forward to writing and recording the next album. The awesome label money was definitely part of why: Fullmetal Alchemist had some stuff written already, and if they had to, they could record on their own, but having money for a better studio and _more time_ , maybe even some extra session musicians and a real producer?

Yeah, he was looking forward to it.

The thing was, the record deal and the label backing was making some things more awesome. Things like being able to _tour_ instead of just playing locally on the weekends and taking the occasional week to road trip in Winry's car. And the kickass music videos (seriously, Mason was a crazy genius and a ton of fun to work with, shooting the second video, with the actual budget? _Badass._ They rocked the demented steampunk circus thing). Professionally or whatever, signing had been a pretty awesome life choice.

But as far as Ed's actual life offstage went? Not so great. He and Al were in the same crappy apartment they'd had for the past two years, Winry still had to deal with her horrible housemates, and Paninya was actually crashing on an air mattress in Winry's room and storing most of her stuff alongside all their boxed up merch in Ed and Al's tiny living room. They had money to tour on, but touring meant none of them could work their regular jobs. Ed...probably wasn't actually any more broke then he'd been before they signed the deal, but they'd spent most of the last six months stuck in a weird cycle of tour-home for a few weeks to earn rent money-tour. Repeat several times, run up the sleep debt and the debt-debt, while having a good time. Right now, it came out pretty much equivalent, but that probably wouldn't last forever.

Transmuted would hopefully be a break from that.

Maybe even their _big break._ They were dropping their third single off _Caduceus_ in July; Mason had spent a few days filming them on tour and just had to edit the footage before the video for " _Up Against the Stars_ " would be good to go. If they could hold #1 with " _Icarus and the Sun_ ", move some merch, and get some more press, things might finally come together when the new song hit. Ed didn't have delusions of old school rock stardom (and rock star riches), he wasn't sure that really existed anymore. Maybe if they'd gotten in the business when Alchemical Romantics and the other major scene bands had it'd be different, but Ed had been fourteen when Alchemical Romantics released _A Footnote in Someone Else's Happiness_. It was a totally different world now.

Winry actually had to talk Al into signing with Powered by Noodles. If Izumi hadn't gotten them to take over _Caduceus_ ' distribution and write in a clause that would up their recording budgets if _Caduceus_ or Album #2 sold enough, it probably wouldn't have been worth it. By themselves, they could probably have scraped together enough to tour a bit, then managed a second album (or at least a decent EP) later on this year, maybe next year. Labels and record deals weren't requirements for success anymore, after all. But it was nice to have the support. There's no way they'd have made the Transmuted lineup without Noodles.

And definitely not on a bus.

"Hey Al," Ed said, poking him with his toe. "Buses have _storage_. I bet we can pack more socks."

Al snorted and grabbed Ed's left ankle. "It's not like you need any more. One pair lasts you two days."

"Well, we could replace one of your legs with automail too," Ed said brightly. "Or both of them, then you and Paninya could match. I bet we could have a kickass photoshoot—"

Al shut him up by shoving him into the back of the couch. Ed batted Al's hands away and came up with an evil grin. "Okay so, ignoring practical shit, we might be able to bring the D&D stuff this time!"

Al's eyes lit up and they started brainstorming campaign ideas.


	2. Chapter 2

Roy didn't get to claim first bunk because Riza pulled him aside to talk about the interviews he was doing later on in the week, one with the band and one by himself. He liked doing press roughly half the time and these were just going to be fluff pieces, so he was slightly annoyed that Riza felt the need to discuss them _now_.

When he finally got in the bus and saw where Riza had placed her laptop bag and that there was a bunk full of Black Hayate's toys, _and_ that _Jean_ had stolen his usual bunk, Roy narrowed his eyes.

"I see you assholes are already conspiring against me. And you got Riza in on it!"

"What makes you think it wasn't Hawkeye's plan to start with?" Breda asked. He rummaged around the top bunk for something and already, Roy knew this was going to end in a screaming match at four in the morning. Unceremoniously, he grabbed their guitar tech Denny's stuff and tossed it in the bunk below Breda's. Roy wasn't going to spend another tour bunking below Breda. Never, ever again. Ever. He'd take his chances with Fuery's snoring and erratic sound engineer schedule. Roy pulled out some socks and a pair of boxers and pointedly placed them on his pillow.

It was a longstanding rule, stemming back to when Roy was touring with Hyuroi, that a man's underwear was sacred. You could mess with everything else he owned, but you left his socks and underwear alone. It was just cruel to hide someone's very last pair of clean socks when the next venue didn't have laundry. Or in Transmuted's case, anything resembling regular shower facilities, much less _laundry_.

And no one wanted to deal with anyone's underwear. God only knows what state it would be in.

So sure, all of Roy's stuff was clean, but the rules stood. No one would touch his new bunk now.

"Come on Mustang," Breda said. "Eastern Command have to be here _someplace_ and we should find wherever the Dogs of the Military are and point Alex towards them. I bet Olivier's reaction would be _hilarious_."

"Think they're with their hardcore buddies?" Roy asked. He respected the hell out of Olivier Armstrong and what her band did; they had killer lyrics and Olivier was an _incredible_ frontwoman, plus she dealt with so much bullshit in the most impressive way. Roy was honestly a little in awe with how much disdain Olivier could convey with a raised eyebrow and she had a _wonderful_ way of telling people to fuck off.

But it was honestly hilarious to see her deal with Alex. In general, they had a really entertaining sibling relationship, but at a festival where Olivier was going to be surrounded by people who were intimidated by her and had no clue that she was related to one of the Alchemical Romantics' emo heartthrobs? Priceless. Maybe this time they'd manage to get some video of the way her face twitched when Alex was being _Alex_ around all the hardcore and old school punk bands.

"I really hope so," Breda said fervently. "It's gotta be the best way to fuck with the Ice Queen without getting killed. And I want to make sure they haven't broken Falman yet."

Until last year, Vato Falman had been Alchemical Romantics' drum tech and Riza's unofficial right hand man. Roy still missed touring with him; the Cretan leg of their last tour hadn't been nearly as much fun without him. Still, it was a great opportunity for him and in the strangest way ever, he did seem to fit in pretty well with the Dogs of the Military.

Roy and Breda ducked out of the bus and almost escaped Riza and Rebecca. Riza was on her phone, not even looking in their direction, and she still somehow managed to snag Roy's v-neck, halting him mid-step.

"You're taking Rebecca," Riza informed him.

"There aren't even any fans around!" Roy protested. "We're just assembling the fleet before we head out tonight!"

"That wasn't a request," Riza said flatly, then returned to her call. "Sorry Kain, Mustang's just being an idiot again. How'd the rest of the inventory go? You found the missing monitor wedges, right?"

"C'mon, pretty boy," Rebecca said. "Let's go find the rest of the guys and say hi to people. The internet tells me that Decaydance is here _somewhere_ and I want to see if I can get their drummer to make out with me."

"Weren't you saving yourself for Riza?" Breda asked.

Rebecca rolled her eyes at him. "I said that when I was drunk. I'd never get laid if I was saving myself for her."

"Can you save yourself if you've already hooked up with—"

Rebecca punched Roy's shoulder and he winced; she _really_ didn't pull her punches, which was probably a good quality in security.

"You don't want to finish the implication," Rebecca mock-threatened.

"No ma'am," Roy agreed. He was still rubbing his shoulder as they started wandering through the parking lot. Roy didn't know how many bands were on Transmuted this year; the number didn't matter, it was a _lot_. Most of them had some form of support and, of course, both the sponsors and the tour itself had a presence. All of that required a fleet of vehicles, enough to fill a massive parking lot and make it incredibly difficult to find anything. This summer was Alchemical Romantics third Transmuted Tour, and Roy knew by now that it was always going to be chaotic, but the first day, when they were assembling everyone and everything, it was worse than usual.

They trekked through a section of the parking lot that seemed to be mostly buses and their equipment trailers. Roy had no idea where his bandmates might be or where the Dogs of the Military were holed up. If he was lucky, Breda would find them before he and Rebecca got the three of them lost in the section where the roadies and techs were doing whatever it was they did. Somewhere, there were trucks with the stages and assorted technical...stuff. Roy didn't know the details and he didn't _want_ to know how it came together. He just showed up at his assigned stage at the right time and played an awesome set. Like magic, there was a stage and a decent sound setup and sometimes some lights if they were necessary.

Breda kept them from getting lost among the mysterious roadie domain and they eventually found Jean and Alex near the other headlining band, Ouroboros. Envy was holding court in a folding chair outside what was presumably their bus. Roy didn't see Solaris anywhere, but he was sure she'd show up soon enough; she was like a ninja. A distractingly pretty, keytar wielding ninja who showed up out of thin air with a wry comment.

"Hello, Mustang," Kimblee said from where he was reading. First day of tour, they hadn't even left yet, and the pretentious asshole was sitting there in his stupid white suit with a giant book like he was so much better than them, too superior to mingle with the common musician. Roy wanted to punch him on principle, but Kimblee hadn't done anything to deserve it yet.

"Kimblee," Roy greeted flatly. He hoped for a distraction, and thankfully, Envy delivered. They were in the middle of what looked like a good story, so Roy started listening.

"So then, they wanted to put Solaris in some absurd schoolgirl uniform, which she wasn't opposed to, she has fantastic legs, but it's ridiculous that the photographer wanted to put her in a sexy schoolgirl costume _just_ because she's a woman. At least talk to her, give her options, you know?"

"Wait," Jean interrupted, already grinning. "Is _that_ why the  Spin cover had you in that skirt and blazer and nothing else?"

"Oh, I had the knee socks, too," Envy said with a salacious grin. "You could see them in the other shots. And I must say, Solaris made that vest look _good_."

"She really did," Jean said a little dreamily. Roy suddenly knew which photoshoot they were talking about now. Last year Ouroboros released a music video riffing off private schools and the seven deadly sins and there had been some press about that, including a couple photoshoots. This particular one stood out because yes, Envy had been wearing a plaid mini-skirt, but also because Solaris had ditched the white button-down and blazer, just wearing the uniform vest and dress pants. There had been one shot in particular, of Solaris and Envy together in an _interesting_ pose that Jean had actually printed out and taped to the living room wall in the house they'd rented last writing session.

"I make everything look good," a husky voice said from behind Roy and he jumped; of course Solaris appeared from _nowhere_. The entire band, it was like you just had to say their name and they magically appeared. He wondered what would happen if you whispered one of their names into a mirror at night. Envy or Kimblee would probably show up and criticize your hair or life choices or something.

"Hey beautiful." Jean winked.

Breda winced, Roy sighed, and Alex looked at the sky imploringly. They'd hoped Jean would be over his stupid crush on Solaris by now. She smirked and glided over to his chair and Roy had a bad feeling about this.

"Awww, Havoc, you know you're my favorite boy band member, but I'm afraid I only date _real_ rock stars."

"Hey!" Roy and Jean both chorused indignantly.

"Five part harmonies are nothing to scoff at," Roy defended. "And I'll have you know, people _like_ dancers. We're very flexible. And my ass is still one of the best in the business."

'Right!" Jean agreed, then realized what he'd said. "We're not a _boy band_ , we play our own instruments and write our own music! Er, no offense Roy."

Roy flipped his guitarist off, because _really_. Jean wouldn't be _anywhere_ without Roy and his ability to look incredibly attractive while brooding over a guitar and singing songs about ambiguously gendered lovers. And his vocal range. And Roy's ability to write with Breda and okay, Havoc's frankly awesome guitar skills and surprising proficiency with writing hooks were part of that too. But mostly, it was Roy. He was the frontman for a reason. Jean should respect that; Roy glared at him and hoped he got the message.

Solaris snickered at them, then unceremoniously shoved Jean out of his seat. "Go angst over your rejection somewhere else. I think I saw the Powered by Noodles people that way." Solaris pointed towards a median with some anemic looking trees. "You can all be emo and compare notes on eyeliner over there."

"Though," Envy added, "if you have any good suggestions, I'm listening. My favorite brand's being discontinued and I need a good replacement."

Even though they'd just found the rest of the band, they split up again after saying goodbye to Ouroboros and making them swear to catch Alchemical Romantics' set before the weekend show insanity. Breda steered Alex towards what was probably the direction of Olivier's band (how Breda managed to find these things out was a mystery, but it would come in handy as the tour progressed) and Roy regretted that he wasn't going to see Olivier's expression when Alex greeted her with a bear hug and embarassed her again. But Rebecca was insistent; she wanted to meet the other Powered by Noodles bands.

Technically, Alchemical Romantics were on the Powered by Noodles label. Alchemical Romantics was actually a little too big for Powered by Noodles; they hadn't worked a lot with the label in the last year or so. They'd signed a distribution deal with Promised Records and it was Promised Record's money that funded most of the last album and tour cycle. The band's lawyer kept trying to get them to do a Greatest Hits Album and have Roy record a solo holiday album just to fulfill the Noodles contract and get them on Promised Records completely, since apparently that would be a lot simpler and someone (probably their lawyer) would make more money that way. Alchemical Romantics kept ignoring that advice because Powered by Noodles had always treated Roy well, even before he had a full band.

Not too many people had been willing to take a chance on a former boy band member. Powered by Noodles had; it'd been a risk and Roy thought it had paid off. Then again, Noodles had an _eclectic_ roster from day one, so signing one of Hyuroi's former heartthrobs wasn't the weirdest thing they'd done. Roy was curious about the new kids; he knew Decaydance was more on the electronica side of things, and he had heard their last single at lot when they toured Silesia and Fraconia in January. Fuery liked them and Rebecca wanted to make out with their drummer, which was something like a recommendation.

The newest kids though, Fullmetal Alchemist? Roy really wanted to meet them.

Roy was going to have to wait a couple days to meet Fullmetal Alchemist; apparently they were coming off a tour and hung up on some press stuff and coming in next week. At least, that's what Decaydance's tour manager, Maria Ross, had said when Roy and the others finally found the Powered by Noodles bus.

Roy was disappointed. He really wanted to meet their lyricists and compliment them on their _excellent_ video aesthetics. Fullmetal Alchemist's first music video had been surprisingly well-done, though the credits for the East City University Circus Club and Rockbell Automail hinted at _how_ they'd managed to do a steampunk circus shoot on minimal budget. Roy really wanted to know _where_ they'd gotten their props and set pieces from; the band must know some talented alchemists and engineers and he wanted their contact information. Their second video had continued with the theme, creating a world where a mysterious circus full of alchemy and magic travelled, conjuring miracles and illusions. It was an _incredibly_ ambitious concept and Roy loved it; once he saw the videos he sent them to everyone.

He wasn't sure _who_ had done the alchemy for the videos; they were shot in such away that it looked like the band's lead singer and bassist had done it, but Roy had a hard time believing a couple of teenage musicians were _that_ talented. Roy considered himself to be a talented amateur alchemist, and Alex had actually spent few years working as a freelance alchemist and part-time drummer before Roy started Alchemical Romantics (that was, actually, part of the origin of the band name). He was fairly certain they wouldn't have been able to do the alchemy showcased in Fullmetal Alchemist's music videos. If it were a decade ago and they were an established band, Roy might have written it off as special effects, but for a self-produced video like " _Silver Luck,"_ there was no way they could have afforded it; it _had_ to be real alchemy.

Roy would very much like to meet Fullmetal Alchemist's alchemist friends. He would also like to know who came up with the idea to tell one story spanning several music videos and if Alchemical Romantics could borrow it. Roy would _also_ like to tell their lead singer that he looked good in top hats and leather pants and encourage him to wear them regularly.

Visiting the Powered by Noodles bus and introducing himself to its residents wasn't a wasted trip, though, because Decaydance was now his new favorite baby band. They were precious and adorable and had actual alchemists in their lineup, which was something of a rarity in the music industry. Roy threw himself into conversation about alchemy with their bassist Fletcher Tringham while Jean talked guitars with Fletcher's brother, Russell, and Decaydance's lead guitarist, Reed (who, apparently, didn't need a last name). Rebecca had somehow charmed their lovely drummer, Lan Fan, into sitting on her lap and Roy didn't want to know what they were talking about, not with Lan Fan's blush and the way Rebecca was laughing.

Eventually, Riza summoned them back to their bus with a couple texts; apparently they had to be ready to go in half an hour if everyone was going to make it to the first venue in time to set up for tomorrow's show.

"Swing by our bus," Jean ordered Reed and Russell as they were saying their goodbyes. "We kinda turned our back lounge into a mini-studio thing, like, it's not a great set up 'cause we wanted to keep some of the original furniture in there, but we can play around with those arrangements. And I want to talk to you more about how you both set up your pedal boards!"

"Only if she—" Ling, Decaydance's lead singer, pointed dramatically towards Rebecca, "stops hitting on Lan Fan, she's taken—"

"No I'm not," Lan Fan said. She was still sitting on Rebecca's lap, letting Rebecca play with her blue-streaked hair. Roy wasn't sure how he felt about that, because she was very pretty, but also _very_ young and even if it was legal for Rebecca and Lan Fan to hook up, Riza wouldn't like it. Roy did _not_ want to share a bus with a pissed off Hawkeye.

"You're in a long-term, committed relationship with the band!" Ling exclaimed. "You don't have time for dalliances—"

"Did you really just use dalliance in a sentence?" Russell interrupted. "Weren't you _just_ making fun of my lyrics?"

"Shut up Russell," Lan Fan ordered. "Your lyrics _were_ dumb, get over it. And stop saying I'm taken, Ling. We didn't actually have a group marriage."

Roy could see Ling's eyes light up at the suggestion, but for maybe the first time ever, Rebecca's compulsion to use the most ridiculous lines ever came in handy.

"Gee," Rebecca said, "And here I was thinking you were pretty taken with me. _And_ the prettiest girl in the room."

Lan Fan started laughing, "Ugh, that was terrible. I thought you'd have better lines than _that_."

Roy decided that he liked her; Rebecca could use someone who called her out like that.

Rebecca winked at Lan Fan, "Oh, I have all kinds of lines. Some great curves, too."

Lan Fan turned red and Roy was almost impressed. Rebecca really was the only person he knew who could get away with saying something that ridiculous and not have it totally backfire.

"Oh, gross," Jean said from the door. "Stop charming all the girls, it makes the rest of us look bad."

Roy interrupted before this turned into round sixty-nine of the Jean vs Rebecca: Collecting Phone Numbers game. "Riza will kill us if we miss bus call on the first day of tour," he said mildly, and that was enough to get them moving.

Besides, if they started a new round, Roy would have to get involved again and it was a little bit tragic how easily he beat them at their own game.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days into tour and Roy had a routine down. It was pretty much the exact same routine he'd had on last year's Transmuted Tour; he didn't see any reason to mess with a good thing.

As a member of one of the headlining bands, Roy had a coveted evening performance slot and a longer set time, which was fantastic. He didn't have to crawl out of bed early to play at one p.m. or, even worse, one of the slots before noon. Considering the amount of partying that went on after the sun went down (which occasionally coincided with the last show of the day), Roy was grateful that he didn't have to get up early and play hung over. He didn't party _that_ much anymore, but it was nice to be able to come down from his performance, hang out with whoever caught his eye, and not have to worry about how much he may or may not be drinking.

Roy sometimes longed for his early twenties, when his liver and his back didn't hate him quite as much. There were perks, though, to having spent half his life in the music industry: he knew a lot of awesome people and there were even more who wanted to know him. Roy could find free drinks and interesting people to talk to almost anywhere on tour. Lately, he'd taken to tracking down members of Decaydance and their shared label, because most of them might be broke and have awful taste in cheap booze, but the excellent company mostly made up for it. Plus, if he was hanging out on their bus (or convinced Rebecca, Alex or Jean to hang out with them by proxy), he'd know right away if Fullmetal Alchemist had gotten on tour yet.

About a week in and they weren't on tour yet; Roy wasn't pouting about it at all, regardless of what Riza claimed.

"You're being ridiculous," she told him once they'd settled into their cab. "Nine a.m. was not actually early, and you'll be back mid-afternoon. You might even make Decaydance's set if you're so determined to stalk them."

"I'm not stalking _them_ ," Roy protested. "I'm not stalking anyone. I'm just interested in meeting upcoming talent."

Riza ignored him and Roy sighed. She kept ignoring him; he sighed more dramatically and still no response. Clearly, she was done humoring him for now. Roy thought about the press he'd done today. It hadn't been too bad, mostly talking up the tour and giving some vague answers about how the new album was coming. Roy bullshitted with the best of them and said something about how it was exciting stuff and he was looking forward to telling them more after Transmuted.

At the moment, the new album was a lot of hand-written lyrics and some sheet music collected in a bright blue folder, a couple e-mails sitting in Breda's inbox, and about a dozen snippets and demos saved to all the bands' laptops, backed up on Riza's desktop, and floating around somewhere between Maes Hughes' iPod and computer. Not exactly something that would make the fans happy.

It was a process. Eventually, there'd be another album. Right now, though, he had a tour to focus on and a baby band to find.

Roy texted his band to let them know he was on his way back to the tour site. Breda was the first one to reply

_We're watching Decaydance play. They have a present for you have the cab drop you off by Gate E their bus isn't too far_

Roy was forever going to be grateful for Breda's ability to navigate backstage no matter where they were. He relayed the directions to Riza and the cab driver before texting back.

_Is my present fullmetal?_

_A couple tiny blondes with combat boots might be involved_

That was worryingly specific and vague at the same time. Breda was _probably_ talking about Fullmetal Alchemist—there honestly wasn't any other surprise that Decaydance could have for him, unless the Tringhams had somehow managed to transport their entire collection of alchemy books onto their bus. Roy hoped he was talking about Fullmetal Alchemist and not say, some backstage pass winners or something. Roy liked his fans, but he also liked having some time away from screaming teenagers and that was difficult to manage on a festival tour like this.

Well, he'd find out in about twenty minutes, give or take the traffic and confusion of the tour caravan today.

Rebecca was waiting for them at the gate with Black Hayate. Riza promptly started to ignore Roy in favor of the dog, but that was fair. He bent down to scratch Hayate's ears and got half a face full of dog drool from Hayate's enthusiastic greeting.

"It's a good thing you're so cute," Roy told Black Hayate. He kept petting him anyway. "You're kind of gross."

"I could say exactly the same thing about you," Riza teased Roy. "But I like Black Hayate more because he knows what sit and stay mean."

Roy mimed getting stabbed and Riza laughed at him, then tugged gently on Hayate's leash. "C'mon, boy, let's go for a walk and leave these lunatics alone."

Rebecca offered Roy a hand to pull him up and he took it. They started towards where the buses were parked and Roy followed Rebecca to a maroon and grey bus that was quickly becoming almost as familiar as his own. The only indication of whose bus this was consisted of a small printout of a stylized bowl of noodles taped to the side of the door. Rebecca knocked loudly. Fletcher opened the door and Roy smiled.

"Rumor has it that you have a present for me."

"You're more than welcome to take them," Fletcher said, still standing on the steps and blocking the entrance. "Except for Al. Russell got into an argument with Ed pretty much as we walked in the door and Reed's encouraging both of them. Ling's hit on half the band already and I think Sheska's hiding in her bunk until they settle down."

"Smart girl," Rebecca said. "Is Lan Fan keeping her company?"

"I wish!" Fletcher said. He shook his head, more annoyed than Roy had seen him to date. "Fullmetal Alchemist's got a girl drummer too, they're comparing notes. Also, Maria's trying to conference with the label in the back lounge and there's stuff everywhere. You should run away while you still can."

"What's a little chaos between friends?" Rebecca asked rhetorically and shoved her way past Fletcher. Roy didn't apologize for her, because it'd been well over 24 hours since they'd met and in tour time, that was practically a month. Fletcher knew what she was like.

"I really do want to meet them," Roy said a little sheepishly. "And it's only going to get crazier from here on."

Fletcher shrugged, but stopped trying to block the door. Roy bounded up the steps, unsure about what he was going to walk into.

Reed sat on the tiny dinette table, intently watching Russell insult a ridiculously attractive ponytailed blonde in tight black jeans. Bags and gear cases had exploded _everywhere_ , and Ling was draped over _another_ attractive, ponytailed blonde: this one had bright blue eyes, pale skin, an improbable number of piercings, and wore combat boots with a mini-skirt. She must be Winry Rockbell, since Lan Fan wasn't geeking out with her. A _third_ blonde was also sharing Ling's couch; he was tall and broad shouldered, with golden-bronze skin, attractively tousled short hair that showed off his piercings, and the most interesting eye color Roy had ever seen. Roy spent a happy moment checking him out. Sitting on the floor and chatting about hi-hats, Lan Fan and a brunette with cool brown skin, beautifully defined shoulders, and a lovely abstract geometric black back tattoo that extended to her biceps completed the picture.

Really, the Powered by Noodles bus was just ridiculously good looking.

Fletcher led Roy over to the crowded driver's side couch, as the smaller one was taken up by guitar cases. Fletcher took the tiny space next to tall, blonde, and distractingly handsome. "Al, Winry, this is Roy. He's been stalking us to meet you."

"That's a little bit creepy," Winry said with a cheerful wave. "Hi!"

" _Hello_ , beautiful," Roy said playfully, grasping a hand and placing a light kiss on it. Winry laughed, blushing a bit.

"You're Roy _Mustang_ ," Al gushed. "Oh wow, this is amazing. We're huge fans, brother made us add "alchemist" into our name because of you guys."

"Well that's incredibly flattering," Roy said, surprised. He'd wondered, when he'd started seeing the band name. It wasn't that uncommon for Amestrian bands to incorporate alchemical concepts into their names, country of alchemists and all. Not too many outright used "alchemist" or deviations of that in their names, not unless there was an alchemist in the band. So yes, he'd wondered and it was nice to have his suspicions confirmed.

"I didn't realize we'd been around long enough to make that big an impression," Roy said.

Ling looked up at Roy from the middle of his attractive blonde sandwich and winked at Roy. "Oh, you're _always_ impressive. Pretty big, too, if some of your photoshoots are to be believed."

Roy raised an eyebrow, because was that really the best Ling was going to do? Then again, considering who he was sharing a couch with, it was understandable if he was a little distracted and off his game. Winry and Al, surprisingly enough, seemed completely unphased by Ling.

"We were fans of Hyuroi first," Winry said enthusiastically. "Well, not Paninya, she says she's too cool for boy bands. But I started playing guitar because I thought it was really cool that you could play!"

"Well, now I feel incredibly old and lame," Roy said. He wasn't, really. He'd been stupidly young when Hyuroi formed and they'd had a good run, but when the pop bubble burst Roy had only been twenty. It'd been a few years since then, but he was still about the same age or even a little younger than a lot of the guys on Transmuted.

"Definitely not lame," Al gushed. "Your last album was _amazing_. I don't even know how many times we've listened to it."

"Ed!" Winry yelled out over the din. "Ed, stop flirting and say hi!"

Some of the noise ceased; Ed and Russell must have been arguing pretty loudly then.

"Fuck off Winry, I'm not flirting!"

Lan Fan had pulled a pair of drumsticks from _somewhere_ and was demonstrating something for Paninya; Roy watched them, a little fascinated, while Ed wove around the bags and the drummers to make his way over to the couch.

"I'm pretty sure Russell was flirting," Ling informed them. "He was very animated. Did he try to order you around? Key sign of Russell's interest; he's very toppy."

Ed had started to blush, which was adorable. It was about the only adorable thing about him; Edward Elric did not bring to mind adjectives normally used for pets and toddlers. Words like "staggeringly gorgeous" and "extremely fuckable" came to mind instead. Ed's unusual eye color and the contrast between his stark silver automail and golden-bronze skin was striking to say the least and if the YouTube footage Roy had seen of Ed onstage was any indication, he commanded the stage and radiated charisma _far_ more than the average frontman.

In person, he wasn't much taller than Lan Fan (or, presumably, Winry and Paninya), but his _presence_ was huge. Roy wished he was watching Ed stalk around on stage with a mic instead of standing around a little awkwardly in a crowded bus and getting teased by one of Roy's friends. Slightly flustered was a good look for him, but Roy wanted to see him under stage lights _owning_ a stage. Roy suddenly and rather desperately wanted to tug on that ponytail and lick Ed's jaw line, just to see what kind of reaction he got.

Roy might, possibly, have a thing for lead singers.

"Yeah, well, fuck him sideways," Ed said irritably. "He's a fucking jerk, how do you deal with him?"

"Fletcher is a very good morality pet," Ling said. "And he usually relaxes after we've made out for awhile. You could see if that helps."

"I'm not going to make out with him!" Ed sputtered.

"Pity," Roy said. "You'd look awfully good with him."

"Who the hell asked you? Who the fuck are you, anyway?"

Al facepalmed and Winry looked appalled. Ling started snickering and Roy thought very hard about being nice. He _knew_ they were coming off a tour and came in late; they hadn't even unpacked yet, it was completely understandable that Ed didn't recognize him on sight, and Roy wasn't _that_ famous. But at the same time…

"I'm surprised you didn't recognize me," Roy said. "I heard you named your band after mine, I figured you must be a big fan. But," Roy made a point of catching Ed's eye and letting him see Roy check him out, "clearly you're not _that_ big a fan. More fun-metal sized."

Ed went positively transcendent with rage; Roy felt privileged to see it. It was _totally_ worth the shots Ed took at Roy's musicianship and the ensuing fight.

It was even worth Maria glaring him off the bus and calling Riza to inform her that her lead singer was a dick and banned from the Powered by Noodles bus for at least twenty-four hours.


	4. Chapter 4

Al's expression when he saw the bunks was probably the funniest thing Ed had ever seen (since they were basically triple-stacked, coffin-sized things with curtains and Al _definitely_ wouldn't be able to sit up in his) right up in the next morning when he saw Russell's bedhead. His stupid swooshy hair was _everywhere_ and he obviously hadn't broken out his flat iron yet. The bright blue floral headband keeping it out of his eyes was a nice touch.

Ling's day-glo yellow t-shirt advertising Aquroya's Museum of Forgeries and Lan Fan's hot pink bunny slippers just added a certain something to the tableau. Lan Fan was perched on the miniscule spot of counter underneath the cabinets with an _enormous_ bowl of cereal. Ed wasn't sure if he was more impressed with how she fit in there or how much she could put away. Silently, Lan Fan offered him a box. Ed was hesitant to take it, since no one in his band bought it and people could be weird about food.

"We have like ten boxes. Help yourself." This time, Ed took the box. He wasn't going to turn down free food. He poked through the fridge until he found the almond milk he'd bought on yesterday's grocery run.

"Where's the rest your band?" Ed asked them once he was settled in at the tiny built in table. About half of the bunks still had their curtains closed; he was pretty sure Paninya was up, but he had no idea about the rest of his band or Decaydance. Other than Russell (who had headphones on and wasn't paying attention to them), Ling, and Lan Fan, he had no idea who was actually on the bus right now, much less where they might have gone.

"Fletcher took off with Al earlier," Lan Fan told him. "I'm not sure if they're pranking someone or Fletcher's trying to flirt with your brother. It might be both."

"Reed's got something going on with Kimblee," Ling said with a wink. "Ouroboros' lead guitarist. They go _way_ back."

Lan Fan rolled her eyes and poked Ling with her spoon. "They're friends; stop projecting your guitarist lust on everyone else."

"Should I be worried?" Ed joked.

"Yes," Lan Fan told him. She looked at him with something like pity. "You're a lead singer. And a guitarist. _And_ you're pretty. I'm apologizing ahead of time for how much my idiot bandmates are going to hit on you."

"They'll get over it," Ed said around a mouthful of cereal. "If a bus is anything like a van, there'll be no mystery after like, two days. Plus I'll hide anyone's headphones who drinks my almond milk, which usually kills the romance. It's not up for grabs."

"Is this a put it on the bus rules right next to "tell Maria where we're going" and "don't be a dick to the driver" kind of thing or a don't be too much of a dick in general kind of thing?" Ling asked.

"Bus rules," Ed said. "I'm lactose intolerant. So's Al, but not as much."

"Definitely bus rules then," Ling said. He grabbed one of the lanyards next to him and Lan Fan and pulled a sharpie from the badge holder. He tossed it to Ed.

"Maria made us write up some rules "to keep the peace," Ling said and actually made air quotes, which was ridiculous. "They're taped next to the door, go ahead and add it on. And write your name on your stuff. It _probably_ won't get eaten that way."

"Probably?" Ed echoed. He made a mental note to scrawl his name all over everything and add stuff to the bus rules after he ate. Maybe also make sure Ling and the others knew Ed was a master of getting revenge. Winry would back him up on that; he'd held her iPod hostage for three days on tour once and only played nu-metal while he drove until she apologized for ruining his hoodie and eating the last of the s'mores pop tarts.

"Anything else we should know about you guys?" Lan Fan asked.

"Winry's a night owl and she's terrifying if you wake her up early. Uh. I don't know? I've known Al and Winry forever and I tour with Paninya, so I don't really think about it too much," Ed said hesitantly. He knew his band was full of weirdos, but that was kinda the other definition of "band" in his experience. "Oh! Al's pretty possessive about his D&D stuff, so don't mess with it unless he's taken over the whole couch or something with it."

"You play D&D?" Lan Fan asked excitedly. "Is Al your DM?"

"He is, he's got a cool game idea. We could use some more people for it, if you're interested."

"Yes please." Lan Fan leaned forward, clearly pretty excited about the prospective game, far enough that she fell off the counter. Ed tried really hard not to laugh, but she had the most indignant expression from her new spot on the floor.

"You get used to it," Ling said with a grin. He wasn't even trying to stifle his laughter. Lan Fan glared up at him, then rose gracefully to her feet and stomped over to take a seat next to Ed.

"So," she said, stealing a star-shaped marshmallow from Ed's bowl. "Let's talk about gaming. The bus has a pretty good console set up in the back lounge and an okay one up front and we've got like, everything. We should _definitely_ play sometime. And figure out where we can actually play D &D there's not really a good central spot to set up maps and stuff."

"You're my new favorite," Ed told her sincerely. "Don't tell Al."

Ling eventually got bored when Lan Fan and Ed got into a detailed discussion about their preferred editions of D&D. He said something about grabbing Russell and a shower that had space for the fun kind of contortions, then left the bus. Ed really only noticed because Lan Fan yelled at him to text Maria about where he was going.

"I thought she was your tour manager, not Ling's babysitter?"

"Oh, it's pretty much the same job," Lan Fan said darkly. "He got lost for hours the first day because he decided to wander off. _And_ he forgot his phone, it was awful. We've forgotten him at gas stations before. Maria keeps threatening to get him a leash."

"Kinky," Ed said without thinking.

"That's what Reed said. He offered to buy Ling a collar."

Ed was actually kind of speechless for a moment. "I think that might be more than I wanted to know about your band?"

"Oh no, too much is how Russell bought Ling a muzzle at PetSmart to shut him up one tour."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ed asked pathetically. "I didn't ask to know about your band's kinks. Oh god, I'm going to have to talk to them and _know_ that your band buys each other kinky sex things."

"It's really only a kinky band sex thing if it's Ling and Russell and it _isn_ ' _t_ a joke," Lan Fan mused. "I mean, with Reed, it's pretty much always a kink thing, but it's not a _band_ kink thing. There's some distance— "

"Please stop," Ed begged. He was saved by both of their phones getting texts at the same time. Ed unlocked his phone quickly and hoped that whatever it was would be a good subject change.

"Sheska needs her spare laptop battery," Ed told Lan Fan. She was still reading something on her phone.

"I saw," Lan Fan said. "Sheska's got the front middle bunk on the driver's side, her extra computer stuff should be there."

Ed found Sheska's spare battery easily and then found Lan Fan by the bus door. She had a couple water bottles stuffed in her messenger bag; Ed raised an eyebrow at that.

"Maria and Garfiel refuse to pay 600 cenz for water, so we're gonna drop some off and say hi."

Ed shrugged; it wasn't like he had anything better to do.

They found the Powered by Noodles tent pretty easily. Transmuted was set up surprisingly logically, with the majority of the stages surrounding a large, central rectangle that was full of vendors, band merch tents, label reps, and stupid stuff that, as far as Ed could tell, had basically nothing to do with music and everything to do with keeping the crowds amused. The Noodles tent (which wasn't very big) wasn't too far from from the main stage; either they got lucky or someone realized that putting tents connected to the headlining bands near the main stage was actually a really smart idea. Ed didn't really care what the reasoning was; he was just happy that it was pretty easy to find them.

"Hey Sheska," Ed greeted her. She looked a little bedraggled, probably from the heat. Ed could sympathize; it was pretty hot out already and it looked like they'd been fairly busy, if the half-decimated displays were anything to go by.

Ed had first met Sheska when Izumi and the label set up a couple promo videos to go up on their YouTube channels; Sheska had shown up with a camera guy and done a little interview thing. He'd been pretty happy to see her on the bus. Winry, of course, was _delighted_. Somehow they'd bonded in the two hours or so Sheska had done promos with them; Paninya and Ed had started joking about the wedding when they found out how much Winry texted Sheska.

"Please tell me you got my text," Sheska asked him, pushing her glasses up. "My laptop keeps _dying_ and it's way easier to handle multiple Instagram and Twitter accounts with it."

"Here." Ed held it out, and she snatched it from him and started swapping the batteries.

"So," Ed asked the tent at large, since Sheska was occupied. "How's things?"

"I am so glad I'm not responsible for Alchemical Romantics' merch," Garfiel announced. He had a hand on his hip and dangled a keychain from his free hand. Ed took a look at it; it wasn't anything fancy, just Alchemical Romantics' stupid logo on a—

"Did they spring for rose shaped keychains?" Ed asked disbelievingly.

"Mmmhmm," Garfiel shook the plastic disdainfully. "We've gone through about a box of these since tour started last week. I hope their merch guy has a stockpile of them, and their shirt with the dog on it."

"What dog?" Lan Fan asked. "Is it wearing stupid sunglasses? Because then Ling might have to get one to add to his ugly band merch collection."

"The cute black and white dog," Garfiel said. "I think it actually belongs to someone in the band, because it's selling way more than the other shirt we've got for them."

"Oh, Black Hayate!" Lan Fan said delightedly when Garfiel pulled a shirt out to show her. "He's so cute, we kind of want to steal him."

"Hawkeye would _kill_ you," Maria said from the cash box. She finished passing someone an electric blue and lime green Decaydance hoodie, then faced the rest of them. "Seriously, you'd be so dead. Rebecca, Alchemical Romantics' security? She was telling me about a prank war that broke out on one of their tours. Someone stole Hayate. Hawkeye took a super soaker full of cheap red wine on their bus and threatened all their clean laundry. Rebecca says she ruined half of their guitarist's shirts before they admitted they'd taken him, and it was like another twenty minutes and someone's designer jeans until she got him back."

"So, we should tell her we're _borrowing_ Black Hayate then," Lan Fan said with a nod. "Good to know."

"Where the hell did she even find red wine on tour?" Ed asked, because that was actually the hardest part of the story to believe. He hadn't met Riza Hawkeye yet, but Izumi spoke highly of her and Decaydance had been full of stories about her last night. Ed was willing to believe almost anything about her at this point, but red wine? On _tour_?

Maria said "Roy Mustang" at almost the exact same time _and_ in the same tone as Sheska said "Alchemical Romantics."

"That's gonna be the answer to a lot of things, isn't it?" Ed asked, pretty much rhetorically. Having sort of followed the man's career and then meeting the bastard, Ed definitely got the impression that Roy Mustang was kind of a pretentious dick. Hot as hell, and a damn good writer (and he was a pretty good guitarist, too), with that _voice_ , but he was all eccentric and shit. Pretentious, really, because who the _hell_ brought wine on tour?

"You have _no idea_ ," Sheska said fervently. "I've worked with them a couple times, I'm pretty sure almost all of the weird stuff they do—"

"Like rose-shaped keychains?"

" _Exactly_ ," Sheska said. "All of that is totally because of Roy Mustang."

"I'm pretty sure Armstong is responsible for some it," Lan Fan chimed in helpfully. "He's a great drummer, but he's a really weird guy."

"Honestly?" Maria said from the camp chair she'd reclaimed now that customers were gone, "you're _all_ really weird. I think it's a musician thing."

"Says the woman who willingly organizes the musicians on tour," Lan Fan teased. "I think you're crazier than us; you put up with all the tour bullshit, but you don't even get to play. It makes no sense."

"Just be grateful for it," Ed advised. "We need their kind of crazy to function."


	5. Chapter 5

Ed and Lan Fan left the Powered by Noodles tent after a bit; Lan Fan had done an impromptu signing and Ed had been pleased when a couple of her fans recognized him and asked him to sign their shirts. Ed and the rest of his band actually planned on doing a signing after their set. They had a pretty sweet late afternoon slot and there was a decent break between when Fullmetal Alchemist finished and the presumed dinner rush before the headliners took the stage, and Izumi wanted to them capitalize on it. They weren't _always_ going to have such a great slot, but Fullmetal Alchemist was popular enough—and set to become _more_ popular as the tour went on—that they were pretty much guaranteed decent afternoon slots the entire tour.

Decaydance was in a similar position: they'd dropped their second album in January and they had two singles charting right now, with a third coming out after Transmuted finished. They'd done a spring headlining tour (which Russell fucking Tringham had _not_ shut up about; Ed had been on the Noodles bus for like twenty minutes and just met Decaydance and fucking Russell had been going on about stupid fucking...tour etiquette or whatever, like he knew so much more about this stuff than Ed) and Ling had said something about touring more this fall. Right now they had a lot of buzz surrounding them and Transmuted's organizers were taking advantage of that by placing their sets so well.

It was pretty awesome, actually, that all of the Powered by Noodles bands had such good slots. Noodles was a pretty small label and they had a reputation for taking big risks that didn't always pay off, so it was cool that right now, people were taking them and their bands seriously.

Ed sort of wished that would extend between the bands themselves.

Case in point: Russell was being stupidly superior at Eastern Command's set and Ed really wanted to punch him.

"It's cool if I kill your guitarist, right?" Ed asked Lan Fan. They were somewhere between the side stage and backstage, watching Eastern Command's singer kill it. Ed didn't know too much about the band, but he was pretty impressed.

"Depends on which one," Lan Fan said, speculatively eyeing her guitarists. Reed was watching the set as well, more or less standing with Russell. Ed hadn't talked to him much yet, but Ed was fairly sure that if Russell continued to be an asshole, Reed would stay out of it and just make bets. Ed could respect that; he might even get Paninya to place a few on his behalf.

"You'd have to find us a new one," Lan Fan told Ed. "Ling's really only good for singing, cowbell, and tambourine and ass-shaking."

"I could probably learn your songs pretty quickly," Ed said, just loudly enough to be heard by the others. "It's not like Russell's parts are that hard."

"Fuck you, Elric," Russell called out. "My solos are awesome and you know it."

"Not the word I would pick, personally," Ed said with a grin. "More like...unnecessary."

Russell made the most awesome outraged face and Ed mentally awarded himself points for that. He'd known Russell for about twenty-four hours now and already, making him lose his composure or finding new ways to make fun of his hair was one of the highlights of Ed's day.

"Unnecessary like your stupid sparkly red guitar?" Russell snapped nastily and Ed just laughed.

"You're just jealous you don't have a sparkle finish for your guitar," Ed shot back. "And I don't need a guitar that compensates, 'cause I've got actual talent."

"Gentlemen," Reed said easily, with a sharp grin. "I don't think Transmuted has oil wrestling this year, so maybe you should fuck it out?"

Ed narrowed his eyes, about to shoot his mouth off again, but then Lan Fan's _other_ guitarist was saved by a call.

Ed pulled his phone out reflexively when he felt it vibrating. He'd spent enough time in places where it was too loud to hear ringtones or in vans where it needed to be quiet that Ed kept his phone on vibrate pretty much constantly. He'd _also_ spent enough time on tour this past year, where it was _actually_ important that he answer his phone, to just ignore it. When he checked it, he saw that Al was calling, but it wasn't Al who spoke.

"It's Winry, we lost Paninya and my phone's dying. Help us find her!"

"How the hell did you lose her?" Ed demanded. "We're playing in like, an hour and a half."

"Less than," Winry said grimly. "I have Al and Fletcher with me, but Decaydance is playing in about...50 minutes? Oh, Fletcher says they're on at 3:30, so he's only got like, half an hour to help us find her before he has to start heading for his stage."

"Okay, so where'd you see her last?" Ed asked her. Lan Fan was shooting him concerned looks, and Reed looked pretty interested in the drama he could see unfolding.

"You can't even keep track of your band?" Russell asked obnoxiously, like it was some kind of personal failing that Ed didn't know where all of his bandmates were every second, so Ed flipped him off.

"You lost your lead singer the first day you got here," Ed snapped at him, "so fuck off."

"—near some bright purple tent, but then I saw _Martel_ _Ivarsson_ and I—" Winry was saying and Ed interrupted her.

"Missed the first part 'cause of assholes with douchey hair, tell me everything about Martel Ivarsson later," Ed ordered. He started pacing, too agitated to stand still. "Actually, put Al on."

"Oh screw you," Winry snapped. "I'm perfectly capable of telling you what happened—"

"Bicker with me later," Ed told her. "Paninya's missing in a giant crowd and we're contractually obligated to perform soon, so _maybe_ we should focus on finding her?"

There was some fumbling noises from the other end and then Ed heard Al's voice. "Hey, brother. We lost her about twenty minutes ago and she's not answering her phone."

"Is there the slightest chance that her battery's about as useful as Winry's right now?" Ed asked. If Paninya's phone was dead, then they were kind of screwed and had to hope she'd show up at the right stage on time. It was totally possible that she was just distracted and if they blew her phone up with calls, she'd notice.

"I have no idea," Al said; he was surprisingly calm about this. They all took their job pretty seriously, enough that it was unusual for any of them to be late to practices and shows. For all that Paninya was a pain in the ass to live with sometimes and that she and Ed took a lot of pleasure in annoying the other, she was a professional musician first and foremost. She wouldn't deliberately ditch them in a new place this close to a performance. Ed had been expecting Al to sound more freaked out about their missing drummer; he was a little obsessive about punctuality and making a good first impression. They did have a lot more people to help them out than usual, so maybe that's why he wasn't too stressed out.

"Winry and I have both called her a few times, but it's not going straight to voicemail so I think her phone's fine. It might not be on her, though."

And _now_ Al sounded worried; even more than most people, their phones were their lifelines. Short of making the whole band (and Garfiel) get GPS trackers in their piercings or something, their phones were the only way to keep in touch and coordinate shit like soundcheck times and laundry runs and whatever else came up on tour.

"We're gonna have to reconsider our stance on leashes if she lost her phone," Ed said darkly. "This place is like a fucking circus and every stop is going to be set up differently—"

"Stop freaking your brother out," a vaguely familiar voice interrupted. "I spent too long calming him down and telling him that a missing band member isn't the end of the world for you to ruin it."

"Fletcher?" Ed asked, just to confirm.

"Yeah," he said. "Any chance you're with part of my band?"

"Most of it, actually," Ed said. "You and Ling are the only ones missing."

"Awesome, wait, Ling _isn't_ there?" Fletcher asked urgently. "Make sure Lan Fan knows where he is. We can soundcheck without him, but we've got 45 minutes tops until we absolutely need to have him on stage."

"This just gets better and better," Ed muttered. He stopped pacing and looked for Lan Fan; she was standing next to Reed and Russell and, surprisingly, all three of them looked concerned.

"You guys know where your lead singer is, right?" Ed asked them.

"Uh," Russell said helpfully. He looked at his bandmates. Lan Fan bit her lip and shrugged helplessly. Reed was already pulling his phone out, presumably calling Ling.

"Hey loser," Reed said clearly. Lan Fan and Russell looked relieved. "Where the hell are you? Oh. Yeah, Fletcher got worried; Fullmetal's missing their drummer. That sounds badass, we _definitely_ need to swing by. I think Lan Fan's going to make us do our good deed for the day and help out Fullmetal."

Reed chuckled, "Yeah, okay, I'll pass it on. Let us know if you see Paninya."

He ended the call and poked Lan Fan. "Our fearless leader wants you to know that you're not allowed to fill in for their drummer, you're too cool for them. And there's a half-pipe set up on this stop, Ling's there. We've got to check it out after we play."

"Hey!" Ed objected. "We're totally cool, cooler than your band. Lan Fan should be begging us to let her join."

"Fight for my hand later." Lan Fan rolled her eyes. "Let's find your missing drummer. You can repay us in snacks and booze later."

"Deal." Ed hoped he still had Fletcher or Al on his phone. He checked; the call hadn't ended, so. "We know where Ling is, have you guys found Paninya yet?"

"Nope," Winry said. "Al and Fletcher are checking in with a couple of the roadies over here. She's wearing shorts today, so she's pretty easy to spot. Can you and Fletcher's band keep calling her phone?"

"Sure," Ed sighed. This was not how he wanted to prepare for his first Transmuted set.

Ten minutes and god knows how many calls later, Russell finally got Paninya. Ed pretty much tackled him and stole his phone.

"Paninya, Winry's going to kill you and then Al and I are going to figure out human transmutation _just_ to bring you back and kill you again."

"Chill the fuck out, Elric, I was watching the Dogs of the Military play. I _told_ Al. I'm not going to miss our first show, jeez. Give me some credit." Paninya sounded a little pissed off and Ed wanted to snap at her, but then it sank in that she'd told Al. Ed didn't doubt her; she'd fuck with _him_ , but not about their bandmates.

"How the fuck did Al miss that? We've been at Defcon 3, thinking you'd lost your phone or been kidnapped by aliens or something."

"You called _Sheska_ about me?"

"We're on in less than an hour and Decaydance has to play in like 15 minutes," Ed defended.

"Okay, that's fair," Paninya said. "But I definitely told Al, so it's on him."

"Fucking hell," Ed said. Russell was trying to squim out from under him, so Ed elbowed him with the automail and settled himself more comfortably on Russell's back. "Winry wants us to set up a buddy system. If Al's gonna be that oblivious, we might have to for a couple days."

"Yeah, well, don't let him pick Fletcher to be his buddy," Paninya said irritably. "Pretty sure that's why he didn't hear me, too busy hanging off Fletcher."

"...you mean that literally, don't you?" Ed asked.

"Yep. If it keeps up, we're gonna have to welcome Russell to the Fullmetal family."

"Gross," Ed said. "And Russell's never going to part of the family. I'll disown all of you first."

Paninya started laughing, then hung up on him. Well, that crisis was averted. Now to deal with the newest one: Ed looked down at Russell who seemed to have given up and accepted Ed's superiority for the moment.

"There is a distinct possibility that our little brothers might be into each other. We need to put a stop to that, 'cause you probably don't want to see Fletcher making out with anyone any more than I want to see Al." Ed categorically refused to think about Al having sex; as far as Ed was concerned, his little brother was as pure and innocent as the music industry would let him be, and Al never did anything except occasionally make out with someone behind closed doors.

Russell made a disgusted face. "We could tell them there's a no sex on the bus rule—"

"There isn't, is there?" Reed asked, concerned. "Because I object to that."

"There might as well be," Lan Fan said. "We've got too many people on the bus this time to let someone take over the back lounge for that long."

"We can work it out later," Ed said. "We just have to convince _them_ there's a rule because okay, look, do _you_ want to spend the whole summer walking in on them?"

Reed and Lan Fan both looked thoughtful and with a sinking feeling, Ed remembered _who_ he was talking to.

"I don't kinkshame," Reed told them. "If they want to flaunt it, I'm here for it."

Lan Fan studied Ed and Russell and, belatedly, Ed realized how they were sprawled out on the ground. "They'd look as good together as you two would," Lan Fan said apologetically.

"I hate you both," Russell said. "Fine, Ed and I will just deal with this."

"Is dealing with it going to involve you two fake dating and making out to make your brothers uncomfortable and stop them from getting together?" Reed asked and Ed just stared at him for a moment, because what?

"...where do you even come up with these things?" Russell asked.

"The fans write love stories about us," Reed said promptly. "I think it's sweet. A little deluded, and sometimes kinda hot, but sweet. There's a great one where you and Ling are dating Roy Mustang."

"How is this my life?" Russell whined, and for the first time since he met him, Ed had to agree.

"You should send me that link later," Lan Fan said. She offered Ed a hand up and he took it. "But first we have to play a show." She held her other hand out for Russell and pulled him up too. "C'mon boys, let's go find Ling. You're welcome to come with, Ed, you should be able to catch part of our set before you have to play."

"Yeah, okay," Ed said. Other than figuring out how to break Al and Fletcher up before they started dating, it wasn't like he had too much else to do except give in to pre-show jitters and Ed didn't do shit like that. He was going to watch his friends play, then kick ass on stage. 


	6. Chapter 6

Their first Transmuted set had been a blur. Paninya, thank god, had been waiting for them and within moments of that, they'd gotten their gear sorted out and started the intro of " _The Death of Beauty_." Ed remembered playing " _Silver Luck_ " and saying something to Al that made people laugh and then somehow, it was over.

The next day's set (slightly earlier in the afternoon, but with less dramatic lead up, thank fuck) had been less of a blur, and now, almost two weeks into the tour, Ed was more then settled into their shows. Transmuted as a whole was _huge_ and crazy and different at every venue, and Fullmetal Alchemist's set time changed pretty much every day, but Ed had a good feel for things now, and the shows were _great_. Winry and Al were convinced that a decent chunk of the crowds at their sets were there specifically for Fullmetal Alchemist and Ed was starting to think they were right. It was pretty cool to see people well out of the East who were singing along and it was only _logical_ that if they knew the words, they must be here specifically to see Ed's band.

"C'mon guys," Al said impatiently. "Half an hour until our set and we're on the _opposite_ side of our stage, let's go."

"Relax," Paninya said, a little muffled. She was kneeling on the floor rummaging around under the back lounge's tiny dinette table for her missing boots. "It's like twenty minutes tops if we go through the backstage side and _don't_ say hi to everyone we know. And it's not like they can start without us."

"They can cut our set short!" Al said. He already had his jacket on (why the _hell_ Al was wearing a jacket in this weather, Ed didn't know; at least with Winry, he knew it was because she was weird as fuck and obsessed with her newest dark blue denim jacket which, as far as Ed could tell, was identical to her last one) and was sitting next to his bass' road case, impatient. "I don't want to cut a song out, do you?"

"We're not gonna have to cut a song," Ed said, exasperated. "We have plenty of time, then we're going to play a kickass show and melt their faces off with our awesome, just like we did yesterday and like we're gonna do tomorrow." Ed was standing in the middle of the back lounge trying to fix his hair in the big mirror over the couch. He'd slept on his braid funny, so everything looked kinda weird and he was hoping it'd be an easy fix.

"You need to brush it out for real," Winry said critically from behind him. She held a brush out and Ed scowled at it.

"Don't have time. I just need to not look completely stupid."

"Fine," Winry said huffily. "Put it up in a ponytail, run a brush through it, get it wet and use your stupid alchemy to dry it mostly straight, then we can get going." Considering that's what Winry did half the time (minus the alchemy), Ed followed her instructions while Paninya cracked a joke about Ed's hair being the only mostly straight thing in the band.

_Finally_ , everyone had all of their clothes on, instruments accounted for, and bad hair days basically under control. They even made it to their stage with enough time to do a quick soundcheck, which wasn't unprecedented, but still noteworthy. Of course, the band playing before them ran late because Transmuted had way too many people to actually follow a schedule, but whatever. Wasn't Ed or anyone in his band's fault and it wasn't the first time they played without soundchecking. Ed hoped nothing was fucked up the the keyboard today, he really didn't want to discover that in the middle of a song again.

Fullmetal Alchemist played on the Virtue Stage, because it was one of the only ones equipped with a keyboard (Vice, of course, was the other one). All the stages had basic drum kits set up already, because it would have been a nightmare trying to deal with fifty-odd custom drum kits on tour, transporting them and, even worse, setting up and breaking them down for each and every set—Ed wasn't even a drummer or involved with the logistics and the thought made him shudder.

Keyboards weren't quite in the same category as "completely unwieldy and insane to transport that many of them" as drum kits were, but it was enough of a hassle that someone very smart had decided that two of the seven stages would have keyboards set up on them and any band that actually needed them would be assigned to one of the stages. About half the bands assigned to the Virtue Stage didn't use a keyboard, so it was more hit and miss than Ed would like whether it was set up correctly. He liked to take the five minute soundcheck they were _supposed_ to get to check it, but clearly that wasn't happening today.

"Guess we're going to run over today," Paninya said cheerfully. She was sitting on an amp case, twirling her drum sticks. The rest of them were standing around side stage, guitars ready to go and just _waiting_ for the band before them to finish up. Ed couldn't in good conscience actually blame them for the schedule fuck up. Forty-five minutes ago they might have been in the exact same position as his band; the fuck up could have been before the first band of the day even got on stage. But he really _wanted_ to blame them, because they sucked and were taking up valuable Fullmetal Alchemist stage time.

Assholes.

The shitty band _finally_ finished their set and as soon as they finished mugging to their stupid fans, Al led them on the stage. Ed immediately headed downstage for the keyboard, making sure it had a microphone stand at least and was hooked into the sound system. Everything looked good, so he triple checked to make sure his guitar's wireless transmitter was plugged in, got his pedal board sorted, then dragged the center mic stand to a better position to split between the keyboard and center stage. Ed heaved a sigh, blowing his bangs out of his face and adjusted the height. Fucking giant singers fronting shitty bands made his job so much more difficult than it needed to be. More or less satisfied with his set up, Ed checked in with his band.

Winry was hooking her pedal board into her amp, almost ready to play. She stomped on a few effects pedals (silent for now, since it didn't look like she'd plugged her guitar's transmitter in yet) while she adjusted her ponytail and seemed pretty happy about things. There was a moment of confusion while they tried to work out the mic situation: they had enough mic _stands_ but seemed to be missing actual _microphones_. Winry needed one, since she sang one song entirely and sang with Ed in a few others, and Ed, obviously, needed one since he sang lead the rest of the time. Ideally, Al should have a mic for backup vocals; they'd had one for him all of their other sets.

"The fuck did your mic go?" Ed asked his bandmates. Winry bit her lip, looking between the two mics on stage and clearly trying to come up with some kind of timeshare bullshit. Al just looked pissed. On anyone else, Ed would call it mildly annoyed, but it was _Al_ and he took this shit almost more seriously Ed and Paninya combined (not more than Ed and Winry combined, though, since the band was originally kinda their brainchild and they'd poured literal blood, sweat and tears into making it happen after Ed lost his arm and had to relearn how to play guitar with Rockbell automail).

"Does it matter, since it's obviously not _here_?" Al snapped. He ran a hand through his bangs and for a second, light catching on his earrings before he turned sharply, looking back at Paninya. She was seated at her kit, doing something with the hi-hat; she hadn't noticed what was wrong yet.

"Any chance you've got an extra mic back there?" Al called out hopefully. Paninya stopped fiddling with her kit and paid attention to three of them milling around center stage.

"That'd be helpful, wouldn't it?" Paninya said. She leaned forward, resting her arms on her toms, studying the stage. "Sorry guys, I can't give up one of my mics, you know they're not going to be mixed for vocals.

"Guess we're just going to have to get up close and personal and share then, huh?" Ed said with a grin. It wasn't the first time they had to do this (and it wasn't like Al didn't bounce between Winry and Ed and share their mics anyway), and it wasn't going to be the last, either. Not with how Transmuted's logistics sometimes failed. Or, y'know, tour chaos in general.

"Well, at least you brushed your teeth this morning," Al said with a sigh. "Okay. We'll make it work."

"I'm sure the fangirls will _love_ to see you guys sharing mics," Paninya teased and Ed scowled because, of course, she'd found out that people wrote stories about the band and thought Al and Winry should be dating. Which, gross. Al wasn't allowed to date anyone: Ed wrote it into the bus rules last week after he walked in on Al and Fletcher sitting way the hell too close together "watching movies" in the back lounge. If Al had been wearing a shirt, Ed might have let himself believe their blatant lies, but Fletcher had said something lame about Al showing off his tattoo and no. Al's tattoo wasn't common knowledge _because he didn't wander around shirtless_ ; of course he wasn't "showing it off."

"Fuck off Paninya," Ed said cheerfully. "Let's give 'em a show."

Without any more prompting, Winry took her side of the stage and started the beginning of " _Up Against the Stars"_ and Paninya counted them in; Ed cleared his throat.

"So hey, this is one of our favorites," Ed told the crowd right before he launched into the first verse. "You will only hear these elegant crimes—"

It was a _good_ show; the crowd had awesome energy from their first song, and Winry was a rock goddess with her guitar and sang like a badass siren; she and Al were both jumping off their amps and Al actually had to rush over and reel Ed back in when he overbalanced holding a note and almost fell off the wedge he was standing on. Al kept stealing Winry's mic when she wasn't singing and the two of them got into a stupid-awesome dance off in the middle of " _Anything Please, Except Defeat_ ".

Ed spent half of " _Chandelier Skies_ " leaning up against Al, sharing a mic and backup vocal duties while Winry killed it downstage. It was pretty great, actually, because then he got shove Al to the front of the stage to talk to the crowd when he had to switch to keyboard for the next song. After their set, Ed told his band they needed to think about getting rid of Al's mic entirely, 'cause it actually worked well without it.

"Absolutely not, brother," Al said sternly while they packed their guitars up. "I don't need you hanging off me like that every show, you're enough of an octopus off stage. And we sound better when all of us have mics mixed and adjusted for us and you know it."

Winry was packing up her pedal board, but she'd heard Al clearly enough to respond. "Ed's got a point, with tours like this. We might want to just assume we're going to be missing a mic from here on out, plan accordingly, and then if we have enough it's a happy coincidence."

"We should definitely let Maria know we were missing a mic, because there's probably something in our contract about actually having the stuff we need to perform." Paninya added in her two cenz. "We might want to call Izumi, too."

"We can talk to Maria about it at our signing?" Winry suggested. She'd already slung her pedal board bag up on her shoulder and had her guitar case in hand. "Let's drop our gear on the bus, then we can figure it out later."


	7. Chapter 7

Maria was pissed when they told her about their missing mic.

"It's probably a tour prank," Garfiel said, and Maria's frowned deepened at that.

"Tour pranks that affect another band's ability to perform are _bullshit_ ," Maria practically spat out. "Tour pranks involve things like stupid dares, holding someone's phone hostage for beer, waking a band up with a god-awful rendition of some 90s pop song, water guns and….juvenile bullshit that makes us laugh and _stays off the stage_. If their mic went missing because of a prank, I will kick the ass of whoever's responsible and make sure they're stuck parked next to the porta potties for the rest of tour."

"Oh my god, she's terrifying when she's pissed," Winry whispered to Ed with stars in her eyes. Maria started on another part of her tirade, pacing the label tent. Ed could _see_ Winry starting to develop a crush.

"Please don't try to seduce her until the end of tour," Paninya whispered back. "We need her to like us."

"What, you think she wouldn't have a good time?" Winry asked, offended.

"I didn't say _that_ ," Paninya insisted. "Just that we don't need one night stand drama."

"Who said it'd be a one night stand?"

"Guys," Ed said a little desperately, because he'd listened to Winry and Paninya talk about their sex lives one too many times on cross-country van trips and he didn't need them to start again. Ed was pretty open minded and he lived in his bandmates' pockets; they had no secrets. But there were just some things he didn't want to know the details about. "Don't we have stuff to do? Selling merch. Updating the band Twitter. Instagram?"

"That's what Sheska and Garfiel are for," Paninya told him.

"Yeah, but we're supposed to help."

Paninya raised an eyebrow, eloquently expressing how stupid he was being. Maria's ranting had broken up the remnants of their signing crowd and it was pretty clear that Sheska and Garfiel had things under control.

"We should escape while we can," Al suggested from the other side of the girls. "Let's go watch someone play."

Ed had heard worse ideas; he'd proposed more than his fair share of them, in fact.

"Sure, whatever," Ed said with a shrug. He followed Al and Paninya out of the label's tent and they milled around for a few minutes, poking through the tour's app to try and figure out who was playing where.

"Alchemical Romantics are on in like half an hour," Al said. "We should see them again."

"Yes please," Winry said immediately. "I want to watch Havoc play, his guitar is _gorgeous_."

"He's not too bad on the eyes, either," Al said with a small grin.

"An excellent point," Winry said, linking an arm with Al's. "You two in?"

"With that much eye and ear candy? Of course," Paninya said. She grabbed Ed's arm and dragged him up to the other two before he could protest. Al grabbed Ed's bicep, further preventing him from escaping.

"No, you're coming with us this time," Al ordered. "Roy Mustang's kind of a dick, but so is everyone else on this tour, so it's stupid that you're denying yourself an awesome show just because you got into an argument with Mustang about who's prettier."

"It wasn't an argument about who's prettier!" Ed complained. "He was being a bastard, insulting me and the band. You were there!"

"So was I," Paninya said cheerfully. "I remember him teasing you about being a fanboy and checking you out."

"And _I_ remember how you pulled his pigtails and insulted his musical influences and taste in guitars," Winry added. "Which is exactly how you reacted to three different guys and one girl in school, all of whom gave you their numbers."

"What the hell does that have to do with Mustang being a dick?" Ed asked her, genuinely confused. Winry and Al gave him almost identical disbelieving looks.

"Brother, your first crush was on him. And Maes Hughes, actually. But mostly him."

"And you've spent _years_ in this scene, we all have. That was pretty much textbook scene flirting. Obscurity and aesthetics one upmanship, pointed eye contact, name dropping, and hair flips," Winry added.

Ed scowled at them, because he definitely hadn't been flirting with Roy fucking Mustang. Mustang was a _jerk_. And they'd only met once.

"I wasn't _flirting_ with him," Ed protested. "Band honor was at stake!"

"It really wasn't," Al said. "And I'm not getting in the middle of your crush, but you're going to come with us and watch them play because they're _so_ good and you owe it to yourself."

Winry poked him. "Plus if you don't see them at least once on this tour, your past self is going to find out somehow and invent time travel just to kick your ass for being a stubborn dumbass and missing seeing one of your favorite bands live."

"You have been spending way too much time with Sheska," Paninya pronounced, and Ed and Al nodded fervently in agreement.

Winry and Al rock paper scissored for whether they were going to watch Alchemical Romantics from side stage or between the barrier and the stage. Al won, so they flashed their badges to security and got pretty much the best spots to watch from. There were a few angry looking teenagers behind the barrier, but Al smiled apologetically and held up his pass (which actually _was_ all-access, unlike the stupidly priced ones for sale that didn't do anything) and that seemed to settle them down.

Ed had his arms crossed and was studying the stage setup from the proper side. It was pretty much the same as the Virtue Stage he'd played on earlier, just a little bigger and with some lighting booms and trusses. Also, no keyboard, which was lame. Slightly higher drum riser, too, and what looked like a few more speakers. Other than the lights, the main stage really wasn't any fancier than the other six stages.

They already had the Alchemical Romantics banner up behind the drum kit, and Ed could see that there were three pedal boards in place, so at this point, they must just be killing time before the band came on. Ed checked his watch; it was another five minutes at least and he didn't see anyone that looked like they were in Alchemical Romantics off to the side.

"Looks like they're running late," Ed said.

"Maybe," Al said. "But I think I see—yeah, that's their sound guy, Kain, stage left. If he's here with their mics and wireless systems, they've got to be just about ready."

Ed watched the sound guy do something mysterious with the speakers and at least one of the amps. It was the only interesting thing to watch right now, because the few people milling around backstage didn't seem to be doing much.

Rather suddenly, Ed spotted a lot of movement stage left, just far enough out to be considered backstage. A pretty blonde woman in jeans with a walkie in hand came up to Kain and said something. he was followed by the band's bassist, Heymans Breda, and woman with long, curly brown hair who was surprisingly tough looking, considering she was rocking bright purple chucks. Alex Armstrong bounded on stage, waving to the crowd as he took his spot at his kit and it was clear that the show was about to start.

Breda and Jean Havoc came on together; Breda took a spot stage right, far from any of the mics, and Havoc played opposite him. The three of them shared a look, then Breda took a drink while Armstrong twirled his sticks and Havoc did something last minute with his guitar.

Roy fucking Mustang ran on stage dramatically, skidding to a stop in front of his mic. He wore solid black, including his necklace-collar thing, and because Mustang seemed to be a man who seemed to get off on being weird as hell, he had a light grey handkerchief tied around his right knee for some reason. The only other color came from a couple of his bracelets and his blue guitar. Ed was close enough to see that Mustang had eyeliner on and that his in-ear monitors had some kind of design on them, but Ed couldn't tell what it was. Ed wished he looked stupider, but actually, it was a disgustingly good look for him. Mustang spent a minute or two high fiving fans near the barrier and posing before coming to stand silently in front of his mic stand and letting the anticipation build. Without warning, he pulled his mic close and launched into the first song acapella.

"Where is your boy tonight? I hope he is a gentleman, maybe he won't find out what I know—

you were the last good thing about this part of town—"

And then the guitars kicked in and Ed's jaw dropped, because he was close enough to see how ridiculous Mustang's part was. He'd always thought _Havoc_ had that first pass, with how fast it came in while Mustang was singing tongue-twisters. Mustang _grinned_ and tossed his bangs back, launching them into one of Ed's favorite choruses ever.

Havoc bounced around the stage as he played, and Mustang actually had to pull him in by his shirt for the backup vocals on the chorus. He didn't bother to let him go for the next "Where is your boy tonight," holding Havoc close and pulling him down within kissing distance, flirting with him before bringing his free hand down to playfully smack Havoc's ass. Havoc shoved him away with a laugh and Mustang stalked over to Breda to do something vaguely obscene with Breda's bass. Mustang made it back to his mic stand, already feeding off the crowd's energy and getting them to sing the next chorus with him.

"Fuck me," Ed breathed because crappy phone footage and the concert DVD from Alchemical Romantics' world tour a couple years ago had _nothing_ on seeing Roy Mustang performing live. The band went right into their second song without a break and Ed was treated to the sight of Mustang dropping to his knees in the middle of a verse, holding a note, clear and gorgeous. He came right up again and did something slinky with his hips to get up in Havoc's space again. Havoc dropped to a knee, playing like the incipient rock god he was and Mustang fisted his fingers in Havoc's hair, leaning down so they could share the mic.

Paninya threw up rock horns, singing along while Winry screamed about Havoc's guitar; Ed could feel his face hurting from how hard he was grinning and he _knew_ his hearing was going to be fucked forever after this with how close they were to some of the speakers, but it was totally worth it.

Mustang took a second to catch his breath after that before stalking his way down the stage to stand on a monitor wedge and play to the crowd.

"Dublith," he practically purred into his mic. "It's been awhile since we've seen you and you look _ravishing_. Thank you for that very warm welcome, we're Alchemical Romantics and we fucking love you."

With that, Armstrong counted them in to " _The Best Part of Believe_ " and Mustang kicked off his wedge, singing about love and liars. Ed's eyes fixated on Mustang's ass until he turned and for a second, Ed mourned the loss of such a sight. Mustang's skintight, sweat drenched v-neck kind of made up for it, and the expression on his stupidly perfect face _definitely_ made up for it.

God _damn_ , Mustang put on a good show.


	8. Chapter 8

Roy was contemplating his place in the universe. It was almost one p.m., he was still wearing yesterday's stage clothes, he was mildly hungover, and his cup of shitty catering coffee was empty.

Life was pretty good, all things considered.

Coffee would improve it, though.

He thought about braving the line again, but the coffee _really_ wasn't worth it. The band needed to do a grocery run; he wasn't going to suffer through catering's sorry excuse for coffee again tomorrow. Roy grabbed his phone and flipped his sunglasses up so he could see what he was typing. He was proud of himself for only wincing a little from the sun and for managing to spell most of his text correctly. Riza would _probably_ figure out what he meant.

Roy went back to his existential musings. Maybe if he thought about it enough, more coffee would appear. Nothing happened, so Roy steepled his fingers and let his ever so slightly aching head rest on them. He was zoned out people-watching when rather suddenly, a styrofoam cup of coffee appeared in front of him like magic.

Roy looked up and met Edward Elric's golden gaze.

"Well that's unexpected,' Roy said conversationally. Ed hadn't been very friendly since that first meeting a few weeks ago, but Roy was pretty sure he'd seen Ed and his bandmates watching Alchemical Romantics' set a couple times. They'd run into each other on the Powered by Noodles bus a few times as well, since Alex had also realized that Decaydance had a pair of alchemists and kept wanting to talk shop. Roy hadn't objected; he _liked_ hanging out with Decaydance and it was fun to bounce music and alchemy ideas off the Tringhams.

"Peace offering," Ed said. "Al said I was being a dick, so. This is me extending the olive branch or whatever."

Roy took a sip of the coffee; it was pretty gross, but that wasn't Ed's fault.

"You want to sit?" he asked, gesturing to the empty folding chairs surrounding them.

Ed had some kind of pasta thing on his paper plate; Roy side eyed it, because Transmuted's catering was notoriously hit and miss. The barbecue was usually decent, and whatever food vendors were selling the crowds tended to be okay, but no one could actually live on tofu dogs, burgers, and fried dough (though Breda made a damn good effort). Catering was supposed to fill in the gaps, but if today's pasta offering was any indication, Roy was going to keep buying ramen and smoothies for the bus and splitting Xingese takeout orders with Alex and Riza. At least they got vegetables sometimes.

Ed bravely stuck a fork in the mystery pasta and Roy waited to see what would happen when he finally took a bite. It was anti-climatic; Ed just made a face and shoved it in anyway.

Well, they _did_ have to eat. And he'd seen how Lan Fan and Ling went through food; Ed probably didn't have anything left on his bus.

"I'm pretty sure ramen's a better option," Roy said. "It's faster, at least."

Ed shrugged and swallowed another mouthful. "Yeah but that's assuming it'll still be there when when I'm hungry."

"I have a stash on my bus if you're ever desperate," Roy offered. "You shouldn't have to suffer _that_ ," he pointed to Ed's plate, "on a regular basis."

"Thanks," Ed said with a breathtaking smile. Roy's internal organs did a stupid swoopy thing that he ignored. This wasn't the time; he had a reasonably friendly Edward Elric in front of him. Roy _needed_ to talk about baroque pop with him.

"So," Roy said in the friendliest under-caffeinated tone he could manage. "Piano. You play it. Plus guitar. Am I right in guessing that you're a big reason why you brought in violin on your album?"

"Me and Al both had some ideas about that," Ed said. "Enough that it was worth hiring someone to record with us. We did like a million takes of those songs in two days and ended up splicing bits and pieces together for the album versions."

"How're you handling it on your regular tours?" Transmuted being what it was, with short sets and minimal soundchecks, a decent number of the bands (Roy's included) were playing slightly stripped down or rearranged versions of their songs. Roy had been surprised when he realized that Fullmetal Alchemist was performing with a keyboard, but he supposed piano was such a part of their sound that they'd actually be worse off if they'd left it at home and Ed was just playing guitar.

"We're friends with a guy studying classical stuff at East City University," Ed said. He reached for Roy's new cup of coffee, hesitated long enough for Roy to nod permission and then took a sip. “Ugh, that's disgusting. Anyway, our friend covers local stuff for us sometimes and we just use the isolated album violin if the venue's sound system plays nice with us, otherwise we skip it."

"That's unfortunate, that you have to skip it sometimes."

"We're hoping we might be able to bring someone with us if we ever get to headline a tour."

"I'd pay good money to see that," Roy said. He really would; they put on a great show with just a short set, he'd _love_ to see what Fullmetal Alchemist would do with a full show.

"Tell the label, maybe they'll give us the money for it."

Roy couldn't help but laugh, it'd be nice if he had that much pull. "If you had an endless budget, what would your dream tour be like?" Ed's eyes lit up with that question and Roy got a little lost in them.

"Well," Ed started. "First of all, what do you know about steampunk? 'Cause I'm thinking steampunk circus, kinda like what we did with our videos for "Silver Luck" and "Icarus", but like, stripped down a little, because we actually need to be able to play—"

Roy interrupted Ed mid-sentence. "Can we talk about your music videos for a second, because they're _amazing_."

Ed smiled and looked _incredibly_ pleased. "Please feel free to tell me more about how awesome me and my band are."

Roy rolled his eyes. "I don't know about awesome," he teased, "but I was really impressed with your videos. They're gorgeous, who came up with the concepts?"

"The circus idea was Winry's, kinda. When we were kids Winry like playing with dolls like most girls, but she's an engineering nerd and fucking loves architecture as much as Al does, right. So Al had this idea to try and design an array that would let us create a different dollhouses for her in the backyard. We spent fucking forever on it, our mom helped us with the architectural research shit, and it's still the best fucking birthday gift we've given her. So when we were brainstorming video ideas with our director, Mason, we kept trying to come up with cool stuff we could do for cheap and Winry remembered that array."

Roy opened his mouth to say something that would probably be very stupid, but Ed gestured for him to shut up before he could express any of his disbelief and possibly piss Ed off again.

"Winry wondered if we could use alchemy to construct a set and Mason got excited, because he'd filmed some alchemy before, but nothing like that. We tossed some more ideas around and, shit, the circus thing might have been one of us being a smartass, wondering why the hell a stage or whatever would appear out of nowhere. We ended up running with it."

"Are you telling me you actually did all the alchemy in the videos?" Roy asked incredulously.

"Uh, yeah? Plus a bunch of behind the scenes stuff, you don't create something solid enough for tightrope rigging in one take. We weren't going to risk anyone's safety!"

Roy stared at Ed, who was still eating his awful catering pasta like this was a completely normal, everyday conversation. Maybe it was for him. "You used alchemy to create set pieces. _Elaborate_ set pieces. In one take?"

"Yes?" Ed looked slightly confused. "I mean, it's not like it's hard if you've got a good array. We spent, I don't know, a week or so designing the arrays with Mason and the University circus club to make sure they were gonna look cool and be big enough for stuff. Did a couple trial runs, worked out the kinks, then spent an afternoon rehearsing with the circus club. It wasn't _that_ complicated."

"I've _never_ seen alchemy like that," Roy stated. "Alex and I combined probably couldn't pull that off so quickly. You _designed_ the arrays? That's incredible Ed, that's. If Amestris still had State Alchemists that probably would have gotten you a pocket watch."

Ed snorted, then finished the coffee he'd brought for Roy. He wasn't going to complain about that; Ed's company was _definitely_ worth more than most of a cup of bad coffee. "Not like I'd've ever joined them. Though, it's too bad we finished shooting the last video, adding a silver pocket watch to me or Al's costume would have been a cool detail."

"The costuming is wonderful," Roy said sincerely. "I particularly like the top hat." He was tempted to tell Ed that he also liked the leather pants, but he didn't want to scare Ed off. Ed was even more interesting than Roy thought he would be; Roy wanted to keep him around.

"The hat's fucking awesome," Ed agreed. "I had to fight for it, Al thought it was tasteless. I told him that if it was cool for Winry to run around in a fucking corset with stupid steampunk goggles then I was allowed to rock leather pants and a top hat. Plus, _Paninya_ got an awesome hat and that coat; I couldn't let my drummer look cooler than me."

"Is your next video going to continue the theme?"

"Yeah!" Ed said enthusiastically. "It's gonna be awesome and kinda wrap the storyline up? We might revisit it later with something, I dunno. But we're probably not gonna do another steampunk circus video. Might bring some of the ideas into a tour someday. Not the costumes, though."

"Why not?" Roy asked. He rather hoped Ed would bring the leather pants on tour, at least.

"Only some of the stuff is actually ours," Ed explained. "Not gonna waste money on rentals or custom stuff. And a lot of it's a pain in the ass to move in. We've already banned corsets, whatever Winry says. She rocks them, but she can't really play in one.

"That'll disappoint some people," Roy pointed out.

"Fuck 'em," Ed said. "Winry's a person and a fucking awesome guitarist, not a decoration. If she wants to wear 'em in a photoshoot, cool. But she shouldn't have to and if people _think_ she _or_ Paninya should just be there to look pretty I don't want them at our shows."

Roy's heart did a weird swoopy thing again. His career had taken him to a lot of places, often with women trying to make a living in the music and entertainment industries. Roy had seen how shitty it could be behind the scenes. Ed's unthinking solidarity with his female bandmates and his obvious _respect_ for them as people and musicians was...not unexpected, per se. But it was very nice to see it. Roy made a note to make sure Riza and Rebecca got a chance to really meet and hang out with Fullmetal Alchemist; it would probably be a breath of fresh air for all of them.

"So, no fanciful costumes on tour." Roy leaned in and rested his chin on his hands, steering the conversation back to it's original topic. "But what else would you do with a headlining tour?"

Almost immediately, Ed started ticking things off on his fingers. "I'd want a violinist and maybe someone who could take over my guitar part when I'm playing the piano. We've rearranged stuff to make it work with the four of us, but it'd be cool to play the songs as we wrote them, you know?"

"Would you tour with a piano or a keyboard?" Roy asked. "And actually, I know someone who would do an awesome lighting job for you guys. Have you seen any of the live footage from our Lovesick Cynics tour? Our designer's name is Vanessa; she did the lighting and it was so good, we hired her for the international tour."

"Piano," Ed said. "Duh. Upright, 'cause it'd fit the vibe better and be easier to move. You have her contact info, right? Someday we're gonna do a kickass tour, and Paninya's actually got some good ideas for a backdrop thing. But some badass lighting would make it even better, you know?"

Roy _did_ know. Part of the fun, once the album was locked down, was coming up with tour ideas. Places they wanted to go, stage designs, lighting, everything. Alchemical Romantics didn't really go in for costuming like some bands (and like Roy had dealt with during half of his Hyuroi tours), but Roy and Alex both liked to have interesting set pieces and lighting. They'd worked with Vanessa a few times; he knew she'd _love_ to work with Fullmetal Alchemist.

It was nice, sitting around with Ed and talking about tour aesthetics, which gradually turned into a conversation about movie design and soundtracks and then, of course, music. Ed listened across genres, which was a nice change of pace. Too many people Roy talked to on this tour restricted themselves to one or two genres, which was stupid, because _genres_ were arbitrary but music was just music; the good stuff could be found in a lot of places. Ed got that, and they spent the rest of the afternoon talking, right up until Ed had to leave for his set.

"You should come see us," Ed said a little shyly. "If you're not doing anything, I mean."

"I caught your set the other day with Fuery and Ling. But I'm not exactly busy right now," Roy said with a smile. Watching Ed and his bandmates play wasn't exactly going to be a hardship and Roy was looking forward to having a good reason to keep talking to Ed and hanging out.

Ed beamed at him and Roy's traitor organs did their stupid swoopy thing again. Roy _reall_ y had to get over his lead singer thing or he was going to have a problem.

Partway through Fullmetal Alchemist's set Roy discovered that he didn't just have a singer thing: he had an Edward Elric thing.

Specifically, he had a thing for watching Ed settle in at the keyboard, with his perfect posture and intensity focused on the keys in front of him. Roy wasn't a piano expert; he knew Ed played _well,_ but he wasn't as good as someone who'd played from childhood. Ed had to focus on his keyboard like he didn't have to focus on his guitar and it was _breathtaking_ to see all of that intensity centered on one task. Ed played with passion and enough talent to make up for what he lacked in skill, and there was something about his perfectly straight back and the way his hands danced across the keys that captivated Roy.

Roy was almost disappointed when the song ended and Winry talked to the crowd to cover Ed switching from keyboard back to guitar. Ed's swagger, once he had his guitar settled in again and he started bantering with Winry and the audience a little, was a _very nice_ consolation prize, though. Roy had a fantastic view of Ed's ass while he played the crowd and led them into the beginning of the next song.

A lot of singers and guitarists were cocky on stage; there was a kind of arrogance the came with demanding that much attention from people, but in Roy's experience, only a handful of singers and guitarists had the skill and talent to back it up. Ed, though, he'd been born to command a stage, and he _charmed_ people. He owned his stage, clearly thriving off the attention and completing an intangible circuit that practically electrified the air. Roy found it impossible to keep his eyes off Ed.

By the second chorus of " _Up Against the Stars,_ " Ed was playing back to back with Winry and facing Roy's side of the stage. His eyes were closed as he sang clever lyrics about defying an uncaring universe, hands unconsciously sliding up and down the neck of his guitar. Ed was playing by muscle memory, focused on the moment and completely _connected_ with the crowd.

Ed opened his eyes and met Roy's almost immediately; he grinned and for a moment, all of Ed's happiness and intensity was centered on Roy. It took Roy's breath away.

This was a problem.


	9. Chapter 9

Roy was not impressed with Ed's movie collection. It was pretty much exclusively Tim Burton and horror films and sure, Roy liked Burton's aesthetic and the occasional jump scare, but Ed took it to another level. At least Ed's bandmates had decent taste in movies. Well, Paninya had some really awful action movies, but not as many as Breda, for which Roy was grateful.

Ed and Paninya had commandeered their back lounge for a movie night and unfortunately got first pick. Roy had been delighted to have a reason to spend more time with Ed and properly introduce Jean and Winry, but Ed's company wasn't worth sitting through multiple gore fests.

Thankfully, Winry and Sheska called dibs on the next movie.

"Why are we watching _Jupiter Ascending_ again?" Ed demanded.

"Because it's awesome," Sheska replied. "And Jean hasn't seen it and Russell's not here to make fun of it."

Ed sighed dramatically. " _Fine,_ we'll watch the stupidest space opera ever."

"It's not stupid!" Winry defended. "It's very clearly a small part of a much larger verse, there is real thought put into how this world works! We just don't get to see it all."

"Okay but if your movie is obviously missing stuff _and_ you can't tell the story in about two and a half hours _and_ you're not getting sequels, _somewhere_ along the line you failed your job," Paninya pointed out. She was curled up in the other corner of the u-shaped couch, smushed in between Sheska and Jean. Roy could barely see her from his spot; Ed, Winry and Jean were all in the way, but he heard her clearly enough.

"Paninya's got a very good point," Roy said. "It was written and directed by the team who did _The Matrix_ , right? Remember how much of a mess the sequels were?"

"Oh jeez, I try and block that last one from my memory," Jean said with a groan. "I saw it in theatres and it made no damn sense. I was so mad I'd spent my allowance on it."

"....God you two are old," Paninya said. "But yeah, I guess, same idea. _Jupiter Ascending_ 's a hot mess. Let's watch _Pacific Rim_ instead."

"Nope," Winry said cheerfully. "We already decided, Sheska's put the disc in already. We're going to enjoy all the eye candy!"

"I'm seconding _Pacific Rim_ though," Ed said. "And Roy agrees with me, so majority rules. You'll still have eye candy _and_ that soundtrack."

"I'm not opposed to watching the other one though," Roy said. "I still haven't seen it."

" _Pacific Rim_ soundtrack though," Ed insisted. "Way better than, shit, most movie soundtracks."

"He's right," Jean said. "The soundtrack alone was worth the ticket price."

"It's great," Sheska agreed. "But Winry and I decided what we're watching and I'm the closest to the blu-ray player so I get to make the final call. We're going to swoon over Jupiter's costumes."

"I see how it is," Ed said. "Shut up and watch or leave, huh?"

"Yep," Winry said cheerfully. She jerked her thumb towards the lounge door. "Exit's that way."

Roy exchanged a look with Ed; he really didn't have any objections to watching the movie the girls had picked, but he was really here to hang out with Ed. If Ed wanted to split, Roy would follow. Ed made a face and stood up.

"Enjoy your shitty space opera. Text me if you put in a good one later. Or _Pacific Rim_."

Roy shrugged apologetically and followed Ed out. Ling, Russell, Reed and Alex were playing Rocket League in the front lounge. Roy blinked, surprised to see another of his bandmates on the Noodles bus.

"Is anyone actually on our bus tonight?" Roy asked.

"Pretty sure Lan Fan's over there with Rebecca," Reed said with an eyebrow wiggle. "I'd steer clear of your back lounge for awhile."

"Well, I guess Rebecca will be in a good mood," Roy said, sighing. At least Rebecca would throw something over the couches and she and Lan Fan would both respect the recording equipment, which was better than Jean and some of the people he hooked up with.

"Riza won't," Alex said grimly; he jabbed the buttons on his controller morosely.

Roy's face fell, because Alex was right. Riza and Rebecca got along amazingly well, but Riza _never_ handled Rebecca's flings very well. Roy had his suspicions why, but until one of them talked about her feelings nothing was going to change. Roy and Breda were going to give it another six months or so before they staged an intervention.

"Does Riza know what Rebecca's up to yet?" Roy was cautiously optimistic; Riza might not even find out about this and then there wouldn't be tension on the bus. Alex's expression didn't bode well.

"I'm not sure," Alex said. "I haven't see Riza since our performance, but since most of us are otherwise occupied, I suspect she was planning on taking advantage of the quiet bus to get work done."

Roy closed his eyes and grimaced. Alex was probably right, which meant they were in for an awkward couple of hours.

"Wonderful," he said dryly. Ling and Russell looked sympathetic. "Can I crash on your bus?"

"That bad, huh?" Russell said. "Assuming my brother and Al actually sleep in their bunks for a change, the back lounge should be free if you want it."

Roy considered _why_ Al and Fletcher might sleep in the back lounge instead of their bunks and weighed that against a tetchy Riza and Rebecca's dramatics.

"I'll think about it," Roy said.

"There's always the front lounge," Ed reminded them. "The couches aren't as comfy, but way less chance of seeing half-naked siblings."

"I'm not related to either of them," Roy said. "But I'm not sure any of us want to take our relationship to that level."

"Ed does," Reed said with a grin. "In fact, he'd like to level up—- "

"Shut the fuck up Reed," Ed snapped, storming off the bus. Reed's laughter followed Roy as he hurried to keep up with Ed.

"Fucking Reed," Ed muttered. Roy probably wasn't meant to hear that; Ed was walking quickly.

"He's an asshole," Roy agreed, catching up and matching Ed's pace. "I think it's how he expresses affection?"

"No, he's just a douchebag who like to make people squirm," Ed said darkly. "I live with the asshole. Trust me, he just likes to get a reaction."

"He and Ling both," Roy said ruefully. They walked through the sprawling caravan of buses and trailers; there weren't too many bands out in this part of the parking lot. There _were_ a lot of techs and roadies finishing their inventories and loading up a bewildering amount of stuff. It wasn't the best time and place to hang out, which probably explained why most of the bands seemed to be keeping to their buses.

"Are we heading anywhere in particular?" Roy asked. Both of their buses were out, but between them they had a lot of friends with air conditioned buses and space for two more.

"Not really," Ed said, slowing to a more reasonable walking pace. "Away from Reed, so I don't punch him in his stupid face."

Roy thought about asking, then he considered Decaydance and Ed's temper. "Ah," Roy said, understandingly. "It's not about what Reed said, it's just too much time with him and his band?"

"Give the man a prize," Ed said sarcastically. "Ah, shit, that came out wrong. I'm not pissed at you this time, not your fault I'm stuck on a bus with assholes and lunatics."

"I don't think Maria's an asshole," Roy said, nudging Ed and directing them away from the parking lot. "Or your brother. Though, I will grant you that Sheska's eccentric as hell and I can't decide if I need to introduce her to Falman or not."

"Falman's...one of your techs?" Ed asked.

Roy spotted a picnic table that didn't look too gross and took a seat, patting the table top next to him. Ed didn't say anything, but he took the spot right next to Roy, sitting a little closer than Roy had expected.

"Falman _was_ our drum tech," Roy explained. "He's an excellent drummer in his own right, but generally prefers to be a little more behind the scenes. He's filled in for Alex before, which is actually what got him where he is now. Alex's oldest sister fronts a band—"

"Dogs of the Military," Ed interrupted. "They're so fucking _good_!"

"I know," Roy said with a grin. "Olivier is one of the best people fronting a band in the scene. She deserves so much more credit than she's given. We keep trying to get her to do guest vocals for us—did you know she can sing too? Classically trained, plus she can carry a punk show!"

"What, she doesn't want to be seen as a sell out?" Ed joked.

"Little more complicated than that," Roy said. "But essentially, yes. The Dogs are outright punk, and that _really_ isn't Alchemical Romantics' scene."

Ed laughed at that and Roy elbowed him. "You can't judge," Roy admonished. " _You_ named your band after mine."

"Allegedly," Ed said with a smirk. "But yeah, I see what you mean. She'd lose a lot of credibility if she worked with you guys."

"And what she's trying to do and why she's doing it, right now it'd actually be worse for her to be seen singing, it'd just be ammunition for her detractors. Honestly, even if Olivier changes her mind, she won't do guest vocals with us because of Alex and also now that our former drum tech is her new permanent drummer."

"Fucking sexism and scene politics," Ed said with a head shake. "We ran into some of that crap when we were first starting out in East City, Winry got a lot of shit for playing guitar. She still does, but it's a hell of a lot easier to ignore now, since we're not limited to the same small group of asshole promoters and scene kids."

"It's amazing how much things don't change," Roy said dryly. "But yes, for all that we have a large amount of similar influences and ideas about music _and_ that Oliver and I would sound amazing together, it's never going to happen because none of us want Oliver and her band to have to deal with more bullshit."

"Plus she'd kick your ass because you're a fucking sell out," Ed teased.

"My first album ever went gold in six months and it's certified multi-platinum," Roy reminded Ed. He was _still_ proud about that, because they'd worked so hard on that album and promoting it. "Calling me or my band sell outs is kind of meaningless, considering I was more famous when I was eighteen than most Transmuted bands will ever be."

"Rub it in, why don't you?"

"I'd rather rub other things," Roy said with a wink and an exaggerated leer, which earned him an automail elbow in the ribs.

"Pervert."

" _Rockstar_ ," Roy said happily. "Sex, drugs, and really loud guitars are part of the job description."

"Funnily enough," Ed said with a sharp grin, "I've only seen evidence of the loud guitars and they all belong to Havoc."

Roy clutched his chest, half collapsing on Ed, "You've cut me to the quick, Ed. You can insult me all you want, but how dare you insult my _guitars_. And the rest of my gear! I happen to have _excellent_ equipment and a wonderful custom guitar, I can't _believe_ you insulted my guitars!"

Somewhere in the middle of Roy's passionate speech Ed started laughing. Roy couldn't help but smile about that and feel a little smug; if Ed was laughing and paying attention to him, he wasn't fixating on sharing a very small space with a difficult mix of personalities. Roy had been there; it could suck a lot and a good distraction was godsend. Ed's undivided attention was a nice bonus, too.

"Fine," Ed said, still laughing. "Your guitars are adequate—

Roy made an outraged noise and poked Ed somewhere near his spine. It might have been more of a jab, since Ed winced, but Ed was still insulting his guitars; he needed to be punished.

"The guitars are loud enough," Ed continued, smacking Roy's hand away from his back. Roy took the hint and finally sat up properly. "But you've only got one out of three, so you suck at your job."

"I could demonstrate how much I suck," Roy said suggestively and he _enjoyed_ how much that made Ed blush. "And how well. Trust me, I've got the sex part down. The drugs? Not so much anymore."

Ed looked surprised and Roy wasn't sure if it was because he'd expected Roy to still party that much or because he was alluding to addiction. Transmuted had enough people recovering from substance abuse that there was an informal support group. Transmuted _also_ had enough alcohol to supply at least two liquor stores and it was pretty easy to get ahold of an exciting variety of less than legal substances. At times Transmuted was a _very_ strange place.

"Not a fan of playing wasted?" Ed finally asked. Roy was grateful for the opening; in his experience it was best to be just address the topic before it became awkward.

"No," Roy said calmly. "I had a couple bad years, if you paid any attention to the tabloids you probably saw some of the speculation. They weren't _completely_ off-base; I was making a _lot_ of stupid decisions and probably on my way to becoming an alcoholic. I've never done a show drunk, but there was a run of shows towards the end of Hyuroi where I wasn't always completely sober and I've done a lot of hungover press."

"Who hasn't?" Ed quipped, then he looked mortified. "Fuck, sorry—"

"It's fine," Roy said swiftly. "I'm talking about it, you can make jokes. I'd rather have a slightly insensitive comment than someone tiptoeing on eggshells. I made some bad calls and I probably would have made even more of them if my best friend and my aunt Chris hadn't made me talk to a therapist. I officially got diagnosed with depression and quickly realized that my meds _really_ didn't mix well with how much I was drinking."

Ed seemed to be taking it well; he didn't look overwhelmed, nor did he look pityingly at Roy. That was about the best reaction Roy could hope for; it was pretty serious stuff to dump on a relatively new friend. Roy didn't feel bad about it though, because he'd rather know now if Ed was going to be an asshole or have a problem with his history. And with how much of tour was left and how much partying still awaited them, it _would_ come up eventually. Roy preferred controlling the conversation instead of explaining why he limited his drinking so much in the middle of a party.

"I was self-medicating to some extent," Roy admitted. "So once we figured out the right dosage for my anti-depressant I was a little less inclined to get wasted all the time. My liver thanks me for it."

"Huh," Ed said. "Well, that was pretty shitty, but I'm glad you're okay. My mom takes stuff for her anxiety, so I kind of get it. Enough not to be a total asshole, at least. Do you drink socially or not ever?"

"Socially," Roy said. "But only sometimes. I'm just old enough that it doesn't take too much for me to feel it in the morning, especially on tour."

"What, you don't like being up until three am and then having to get up for press less than four hours later?" Ed joked. "That's the _best_ part."

"No, the best part is dealing with insomnia on tour and having to play two full shows and an acoustic set on about three hours of interrupted sleep," Roy said dryly.

"Nah." Ed shook his head, tossing his braid over his shoulder. "Try getting a last-minute out of town show in the middle of finals when you've already got a battle of the bands that weekend. _That_ was fun fucking week, let me tell you."

Roy raised his eyebrow and challenged Ed, "Let me tell you about the early days of Hyuroi. Five-part harmonies and dancing meant we had an insane amount of rehearsals on top of press. And since we had to establish ourselves _and_ this was before social media took off, that meant dragging ourselves to radio stations all around the country at stupid times, in between regular tour stuff and rehearsals. I learned how to sleep _anywhere_."

"So what you're saying is that you're old and irrelevant."

Roy glared at Ed. "I'm not old! I was extremely young when Hyuroi started, and it was a lot harder to get into the business then!"

Ed rolled his eyes and snorted disdainfully. "Don't even, you had a multi-record deal and a ton of label support from day one. Meanwhile, my band had to write its own music, find a way to fund a tour, and then do everything on tour ourselves. Including driving."

"Alchemical Romantics did that for two years until Powered by Noodles got in touch," Roy said quietly. "I worked my ass off and made good music with Hyuroi and I've worked my ass off with Alchemical Romantics."

"Hey, I'm not knocking your music," Ed said. "Winry, Al, and I have bought all your albums. But you know your early days with Hyuroi were way different than when you started the band."

"They really were," Roy had to agree. "I was so fucking happy when we got a bus after _A Footnote in Someone Else's Happiness_ came out."

"I'm still excited about the bus," Ed said. "Sure, I'm sharing it was a bunch of assholes, but none of us have to drive."

"Speaking of," Roy said apologetically. "We might need to start heading back towards your bus. I don't remember when bus call is but it's got to be soon."

"You wanna ride with us or deal with whatever's gonna go down with Hawkeye and Rebecca?"

"I'm riding with you unless someone gives me the all clear," Roy said emphatically. "Tour's dramatic enough; I'm not going to willingly walk into the middle of more."

"Hey," Ed said brightly. "If you're crashing with us, that means Al and Fletcher can't traumatize me any more today! You want to ride with us every day? Russell and I will owe you."

"My bunk is nicer than you couches," Roy said. "I need incentive to cockblock your brothers."

"What do you want?"

Roy eyed Ed and pretended to think about it. "I want to watch you and Russell make out for awhile."

Ed punched him in the shoulder and Roy _probably_ deserved it.


	10. Chapter 10

Nobody kicked the bus door in, because that wasn't really physically possible without breaking it, but the intent was clearly there, with the way someone was shouting hellos and talking to Black Hayate in the front lounge at fuck-o'clock-in-the morning. Roy blearily opened his eyes and checked the time on his phone. For fuck's sake, it was eight a.m. and he didn't have to be anywhere near a stage until almost seven. He was going to murder whoever was making all that noise.

Roy rolled out of his bunk, letting his feet hit the slightly sticky carpet (Breda's fault, Roy was sure of it. He wasn't even that close to Breda's bunk, all things considered, and _still_ it was probably his fault) with a loud, hopefully ominous thump. He stumbled his way towards the front of the bus with murder on his mind and then found himself caught up in a wildly enthusiastic bear hug.

"Wha— Alex, s'it's _early_ ," Roy whined.

"Good morning sleepyhead!" A way too cheerful, familiar voice shouted in his ear. "It's a beautiful day, I brought you coffee and new photos of my girls!"

Roy pulled away enough to recognize the glasses and green eyes of his best friend. Maes Hughes was grinning at him and Roy just couldn't deal with this right now; he'd been up talking with Ed until four a.m. again.

"Don't drink my coffee," Roy muttered and turned around to head back to bed. He wasn't dealing with Maes on four hours of sleep.

Several hours later, Roy's alarm went off at the much more reasonable hour of 1 p.m. and he felt better about facing Maes's exuberance and the rest of the world. He didn't see Maes immediately, so he rummaged around for something edible and headed off the bus to see if anyone had unpacked the camp chairs yet. He was in luck; someone, probably Riza, must have gotten sick of the bus already since they'd already pulled the card table and chairs out. Idly, he wondered where Riza was, but right now Roy was grateful to be able to eat his cereal and look at something besides the interior of the bus this morning. Afternoon? It was technically afternoon, but he was eating breakfast which made it like morning still in Roy's mind.

"So," Maes said, taking the spot next to Roy at the table. "Are you human now?"

He had a soda and a beat up iPod next to him, which was sort of like his version of getting down to business. At least it wasn't the laptop. Roy wasn't actually prepared to talk about lyrics and the demos from the band's last writing session this early in the day.

"Mostly," Roy said. "Hi. I'm actually glad to see you, even though I wanted to kill you for what you pulled this morning."

"Sorry," Maes said sheepishly. "Elysia's an early bird and I haven't been on a tour in ages, I forgot."

Roy held up the iced coffee Maes had bought him; he'd found it untouched in the fridge and that had done a lot to make up for the rude awakening. Maes smiled, understanding that he'd been forgiven and they sat in silence for a few more minutes while Roy finished his cereal.

"So how's tour?" Maes finally asked. "Your cryptic texts don't tell me a lot."

"It's tour," Roy said with a shrug. "The shows are fun, the fans have been pretty great so far, I only want to kill the band a little bit. There are a couple alchemists on tour, so we've been having some fun transmuting stuff, we had a kick ass water fight, uh, a couple shows ago? I teamed up with the other label bands, we've all got alchemists, and we built a pretty awesome maze thing and took on Ouroboros and some other bands."

"So is that why I got all those texts from Riza about how Rebecca and Havoc are completely nuts and then photos of a lot of mostly naked band members?"

"Possibly," Roy said. "That also might have just been a Sunday. Rebecca and Havoc _did_ come up with a pretty spectacular plan and we almost won. But Olivier somehow recruited Riza for her band's team, so they kicked all our asses. I think my shoes finally dried out yesterday."

Maes was chuckling. "Well, I guess that probably saved all of you a laundry run."

"It did," Roy smirked, because this really had been a wonderful, extra bonus. "And I got to see a lot of very attractive people shirtless and soaking wet. It was a _good_ afternoon."

Maes rolled his eyes, but let it go. Roy figured that over the years Maes realized that teasing Roy about his many music (and actual) crushes wouldn't actually get a reaction because Roy felt no shame in fanboying awesome musicians or admiring (and often hooking up with) attractive people—frequently lead singers, but Roy would point out to anyone who asks (and those that don't) that he didn't _exclusively_ crush on, sleep with, date, or otherwise fall into ambiguous relationships with lead singers.

Their conversation drifted to why Maes was actually crashing their bus. A tiny bit of that was to network and see some great bands perform; the rest was the next album. The band had holed up in a rental house last fall to try and get some writing done, with mixed results. They had a couple demos and a lot of Ideas. Maes wanted to weed through some of them before they hit the studio in October. They only booked two weeks of studio time; they weren't in a huge rush to get the next album out, but it'd be nice to be able to go in with something ready to record and maybe come out with a real song.

Alex joined them after a bit; since he held the songs together it was good to get him involved at this stage, when they were tossing around ideas about structure and album flow. Roy really hoped that Maes would take the time to work with Jean and Alex one on one while he was on tour with them, because sure, they had stuff and wrote collaboratively but sometimes writing sessions could get a little too much like the Roy-and-Breda band, focused on the lyrics, and that wasn't what Alchemical Romantics was about. Some of their best stuff came from Alex and Jean, and Roy wasn't going to let it get lost until late in the recording sessions like the last album.

"Gentlemen," Maes said eventually. "You know I love talking about your sound. But my ass is killing me and you must have some kind of soundcheck before playing."

"Yeah, five minutes to make sure everything's hooked up correctly before we start the set," Roy said dryly. "We've got time. You want to get food or meet some people before we play?"

"Can't we do both?" Maes asked.

They found Riza playing poker with Denny and Ouroboros' tour manager; she decided to accompany them as they made their way through the fairgrounds that made up this stop. They found Maes something probably had some actual food in it and Riza got caught up on Elysia's latest adventures.

"And how's Gracia's studio doing?" Riza asked. They were side stage watching some band Roy vaguely recognized from Aerugo's rather poorly named Midsummer Music Mania Festival.

"She just started teaching another hip-hop class!" Maes said enthusiastically. "Actually, Roy, Gracia was hoping you'd come in and do a class with some of her older students when you're on break, it'd mean a lot to her—"

"You don't have to sell me on it," Roy said, still focused on the band. He liked how the lead singer played the stage, but he was sure he could stalk the crowd much better. Of course, Jean wouldn't let Roy flirt with him onstage quite as much as that guy's guitarist let him, which was a pity. "I like Gracia and you know I support _all_ the arts."

"Just don't let her break him like last time," Riza said. "He didn't shut up about his back for _weeks_ ; he's not as young as he used to be."

"Hey!" Roy protested indignantly while they all snickered at him. His friends were all terrible people.

Halfway through the mystery band's set (where was Breda or Falman when Roy needed to know these things?), Roy's phone vibrated. It was a text from Ed, who'd just finished playing. Roy texted back quickly.

_We're at Bradley stage, come find us_

He'd been looking forward to Ed meeting Maes for a couple days now, because Maes was always hilarious with baby bands and Hyuroi fans.

"Hey, a couple of fans are going to hang out with us," Roy said casually. He caught sight of Riza's alarmed expression, because Alchemical Romantics fans were _intense_. And they weren't supposed to be backstage like this. "Hyuroi fans," Roy clarified.

Riza looked relieved, then slightly confused until she made the connection. "You're _terrible_ ," she said, evil delight sparkling in her eyes. "All of them or just Ed?"

Roy shrugged; he wasn't sure. Fullmetal Alchemist tended to be attached at the hip, but Winry and Ed usually needed a couple hours apart every day to keep the peace.

"Ohhhh, _fans_ ," Maes said with a grin. "At Transmuted! Where did you find them?"

"He stalked their bus until they arrived," Alex rumbled, and Roy got a feeling that "Roy stalked Fullmetal Alchemist" was going to become as infamous a story as the time he injured a dancer on a music video shoot, the time he got lost in Aerugo, or the first time he and Maes got drunk after a show in Franconia and almost agreed to a threesome with a very lovely college student.

"Wait, actually stalked or are you being dramatic again?" Maes asked Alex.

"I wouldn't stay _stalked_ , per se," Roy hedged.

Alex laughed and slung an arm around Roy's shoulder, "I believe most people would consider it stalking. Certainly, we spent a lot of time getting to know Decaydance and some of the label's staff. Lovely people, if Riza ever needs a vacation, I feel confident that Maria Ross could step in and keep Roy from doing anything too stupid in public."

"Hey!" Roy objected, trying to break free from Alex. "I don't do stupid things in public!"

"Of course," Alex agreed easily. "You just do them in private."

"Decaydance is pretty great though," Maes interrupted, before Roy could come up with a decent response to Alex's patently false allegations. "I worked with them a bit on one of their songs; their drummer is fantastic and they're doing some interesting stuff. I'm hoping I can get them in my studio, maybe in an album or two, once they've settled into their sound a little more."

Right then, Roy caught sight of a blonde ponytail, slightly shorter than average: Ed then, maybe with Winry. He tried harder to break free from Alex and, once Alex spotted _why_ Roy was trying to escape, he chuckled and let Roy go with a pat to the shoulder.

Roy wasn't sure he liked the implications behind those actions. He didn't _need_ Alex trying to play matchmaker, implicitly or not. Besides, it was _Ed_. Nothing was going on there, and if there _was_ going to be something at some theoretical point in the future, Roy was perfectly capable of making it happen _without_ meddling bandmates.

"Hey," Ed said once he was in hearing range. Roy waved and picked a road case to lean against that would easily allow him to split his attention between Ed and the band playing. Ed's eyes were bright and Roy could practically see him vibrating with energy.

"Good show?" Roy asked.

"Fucking _awesome_ ," Ed said with a huge grin. He leaned against the road case next to Roy's, facing him completely and ignoring everyone, even the band playing in the background, to focus on Roy. "We killed it and I think Al almost broke his guitar strap, it was that good."

"We've got some extras if he does," Roy offered, and Ed shook his head, still beaming and riding his performance high.

"Nah, we'll just steal one from Reed or fucking Russell. They've got enough extra guitar crap, it actually makes Winry look like a light packer."

Ed continued to tell Roy about his set and Roy stopped listening after a few words, distracted by Ed presence. He gleamed with sweat and his shirt stuck to him; Roy wasn't sure if he wanted to peel Ed's shirt off or enjoy the tease. Roy could see parts of his automail leg through several holes in his jeans and, of course, he'd ditched the long sleeves weeks ago, once they got out of the East and the cold desert nights. Until the tour made its way towards North City, none of them were even looking at long sleeves and hoodies and Roy, at least, appreciated the glimpses of skin and metal Ed's clothes allowed him. Ed buzzed with energy, alternating sharp smiles with goofy grins and part way through his story, he kicked off the road cases they were leaning against to pace and gesture wildly. Roy's eyes gravitated towards Ed's ass; between the tight jeans and the post-show swagger, it was hard not to look.

Ed stopped moving, which was a terrible injustice. Someone elbowed Roy; he looked away from Ed's belt and the strip of skin just above it to see Riza standing next to him, arms crossed.

"You have soundcheck in ten minutes," she told him. "Alex already left."

"I'll make sure he gets there in one piece," Maes said cheerfully and he grabbed Roy's arm, dragging him towards the main stage. Roy managed to wave at Ed.

"I'm meeting Lan Fan to catch your set," Ed called, loudly enough for Roy to hear over the bustle of side stage. Roy grinned, pleased with the world, and finally caught up with his arm and Maes.

"I'm hurt! Wounded to the core!" Maes was saying, starting the middle of a rant. "I don't _believe_ you! We're practically brothers, I taught you how to drink in Silesia! I told you all about Gracia when I met her!"

"You told me far too much about Gracia," Roy interrupted. He wasn't sure where this was going, but anything that referenced That Tour, when Maes met Gracia, couldn't be a good thing. He'd always known too much about Maes's sex life _before_ Gracia. After Gracia and the way Maes would wax poetic about her many virtues and how great it was when two dancers started sleeping together? Never again. Roy was going to shut this conversation down and redirect.

"So, speaking of Gracia, I told you that Ed's a fan, right? Well his guitarist, Winry, made them learn the choreography we did for " _Burning Hearts_ ", which is amazing. Gracia would get a kick out of that, we should see if we can get video of them doing it and send it to her—"

"That's a great idea," Maes said. "And then you can tell me _why_ you know these fun facts and then why you never told me you were dating someone on tour. I thought we had a bond! And didn't we have a discussion about how I need to vet all your dates, since you're horrible at picking out girlfriend and boyfriend material."

"We're not dating," Roy said. "And I'm very good at picking out dates, shut up."

"You're good at picking out people to sleep with," Maes refuted. "Big difference. And see, I already knew you wanted to fuck him; you have a singer thing and I watched the videos you sent me. I _didn't_ know you wanted to date him. Shame on your for not sharing! And you—" Maes pointed dramatically at Roy's bandmates, who milled around the side of the main stage, waiting for the last band to clear off so they could soundcheck.

"You're all supposed to keep me in the loop about interesting gossip! None of you told me about Edward Elric!"

"Pretty sure we did," Breda said. He was adjusting something with his guitar strap and his wireless monitor pack; Denny must have just handed over his bass. Roy located his own gear, pulling out his in-ear monitors and adjusting them, grabbing his guitar from Denny, clipping his own bodypack to his belt. Jean was ready to go, bouncing on his toes a little in anticipation.

"Roy gets a little stupid about Ed, but it's not really newsworthy," Jean said dismissively.

"Oh no," Maes said, shaking his head. "It's big news. Roy-boy here couldn't take his eyes off him. He wanted to make sure Ed was coming to watch him. Which means even if they're already sleeping together, he wants _more_. Gentlemen, I think we're looking at a genuine summer _romance_."

"Shut up, Hughes," Roy said. "We're just friends. And we're on in about two minutes, so go find a spot and watch."

"Oh I _will_ ," Maes said darkly. "A spot with Ed. We'll have a nice chat. I'll find out his favorite kind of flowers for you."

That really shouldn't have been as ominous as it sounded. Roy tried to ignore it, he had a set to play and needed to focus on that.


	11. Chapter 11

The problem with introducing Ed to Maes wasn't, actually, Maes going out of his way to embarrass Roy.

Oh, Maes absolutely shared some tour stories from when Roy had been seventeen, underaged _everywhere_ and on Hyuroi's first big international tour. Maes also took a special delight in sharing the myriad of horror stories about filming what had eventually become Hyuroi's most well-known music video, " _Burning Hearts_."

Roy was convinced that video had been cursed from day one, but to hear Maes tell it, everything that went wrong was Roy's fault. First, Maes told anyone listening, Roy hadn't been able to correctly lip sync the audio playback with his vampire fangs in, which had slowed things down considerably. _Then_ he'd tripped over his cape and injured a dancer badly enough she had to spend the rest of the shoot icing her knee between takes, which was how they'd first met Gracia. When Gracia got hired onto the next tour, she'd never let Roy live it down—she still hadn't, which was one of the reasons why Roy taught a master class at her dance studio every year. And of course, Maes had to tell his audience that it'd taken a hilariously long time for Roy to master the iconic dance sequence.

Maes also liked to tell everyone about the allergic reaction he'd had to the glue used for his wolfman prosthetics and how Roy freaked out when he saw what it'd done to Maes's face.

Thankfully, there wasn't any surviving footage of Roy's (over)reaction.

That video had not been Roy's finest moment, and he was mostly resigned to Maes telling new people _all about_ how it'd gone wrong, because everything that could go wrong had done so rather spectacularly. It made for excellent stories, allowed him to talk about Gracia, and embarrassed Roy, which combined several of Maes's favorite things at once.

So no, unleashing Maes on the unsuspecting Transmuted tour and letting him meet Ed wasn't the problem.

The problem was Alphonse Elric.

Specifically: Al had been a huge fan of Hyuroi back in the day, so he ate up Maes's stories. Al was _also_ a fan of Maes's current career as a producer and enjoyed discussing the finer points of recording, mixing, and all the fun things one could do with a computer and a couple instruments.

Even worse: Al thought Elysia was a _dorable_ (which was true) and didn't mind looking at photos or hearing stories about what she got up to.

"We've got to stop them somehow," Roy told Ed. Maes was regaling Al with another story about Elysia and if they didn't stop this madness soon, Maes would break out the photos. Again. And then probably tell Al about one of the songs he wrote for Gracia and Elysia.

"About all I can do is text someone to call Al with a decent reason why they need him," Ed offered. "He's too suspicious for me to claim we need to go somewhere right now."

They weren't exactly trapped on the Alchemical Romantics bus with Maes and Al, since they had a few hours until bus call and the tour driving through the night for their next stop. But it felt like they were, with most of Roy's band hanging out with the Dogs of the Military tonight and the rest of Fullmetal Alchemist up to _something_ with Decaydance.

"That's a better plan than what I've got," Roy said. "Mine consists of homicide, and I'm not sure where we could hide the body or if I'd be able to look Gracia in the face again."

"Let's not add murder to our list of illegal activities," Ed said dryly.

Roy sighed theatrically, slumping against Ed. "Fine! Ignore my brilliant ideas and work your phone magic," Roy said, making jazz hands. Ed laughed at him, but it was okay, he'd pulled his phone out.

"How long until we're rescued?" Roy asked, shamelessly snuggling into Ed. The bus's air conditioning was up a little too high and Ed was nice and warm, and his shirt was clean. Whatever detergent he used smelled _great,_ and it was a wonderful change from the usual eau du tour bus.

"Could be five minutes, could be another hour. It depends when they check their phones."

"Hmph," Roy said into Ed's shoulder. He settled in, fully intending to unsubtly steal body heat from Ed (and get in a little stealth cuddling in) while he ignored Maes and Al.

Al's blaring ringtone ruined the moment, but that was probably for the best if this was their rescue.

"Hey," Al said in a warm, half-quiet voice. "How are you?"

"No phone sex in the front lounge!" Ed said loudly. 'It's not even our bus!"

Al flipped Ed off, while Maes looked at them in confusion. Roy shrugged, he wasn't entirely sure what had prompted that exchange.

"He's talking to _Fletcher_ ," Ed explained. "He has a stupid voice just for him, they're going to be flirting for ages now. You should kick him off the bus or we should leave."

Roy was impressed by Ed's brilliantly cunning plan. Having Fletcher call Al was the perfect rescue. It was a bold, daring move, too, because Roy had heard at length about how gross Al and Fletcher were on the Noodles bus. He hadn't realized that Ed was self-sacrificing enough to encourage Al's romance.

"Are they actually dating yet?" Roy asked. He'd been just out of the loop enough the past couple of days that he could have missed that development.

"I almost wish they were," Ed said. "It might be less annoying."

"So, should we give them some privacy?" Maes asked. He looked at Roy, "I'm not sure what the protocol is, since it's not my bus or Al's bus."

"Kick him off the bus," Ed advised. "And then we should find some food." Ed's stomach rumbled to prove his point. Before Roy could comment on Ed's bottomless pit or come up with a tactful way to interrupt Al's conversation, Al got their attention with a thrown pillow.

"You're being a jerk, brother, so I'm not inviting you," Al said. "But Reed and Paninya found a place that does karaoke and supposedly has decent food and they want to know if we want to check it out with them."

"That sounds like fun," Maes said with a smile that was slightly evil. "Roy and I do some great covers of—-"

"Absolutely not," Roy told him, already knowing what he was going to suggest. "We're not going to perform any Hyuroi songs, N'Harmony songs, my band's songs, or anything from the 80s."

"You're no fun at all," Maes pouted. "Fine, I'll just sing with Al. You can be lame all by yourself."

"I'll have Ed and whoever else keeping my company while you embarrass yourself," Roy said sweetly. "How long has it been since you sung anything besides the alphabet song?"

Al rolled his eyes at them as he turned to finish his conversation with Fletcher. "I guess we're all in, except for Ed, who I'm not inviting. He'll probably show up anyway. We've just got to call a cab or find someone with a car we can borrow and we'll be there."

They ended up getting rides with Rebecca and Riza, both of whom had magic crew connections and could get ahold of cars, which was helpful, since Fletcher, Reed, and Paninya had invited a lot of people to karaoke.

In the end, all of Fullmetal Alchemist, all of Decaydance, Roy, and a significant number of their managers and support took over several tables at the local karaoke hotspot. Roy was squished in between Ed and Ling and watched with horrified fascination as they each decimated a huge combination appetizer plate.

"You know those are intended to be shared with a group, right?" Roy asked.

Ling just raised an eyebrow. "So?"

"Where do you put it all?" Roy asked helplessly.

"It's really best not to think about it," Maria said from the next table. "Really, don't. I live with them, Al, and Lan Fan."

"Oh god," Roy said weakly. "Breakfast must be terrifying."

"You get used to going through a couple boxes of cereal pretty much every day," Maria said dryly. "I'm just glad I'm touring with them _now_ and not when they were all sixteen."

"Touring with sixteen year olds is hilarious though," Maes said cheerfully. "Roy was—"

"Shut the hell up Hughes," Roy said. "You're only three years older than me, and my first tour was also _your_ first tour."

"Fletcher was a joy to tour with when he was sixteen," Ling said, stopping their bickering before it could get started in earnest. "His voice kept cracking, though, which was really funny, but not so great for backup vocals."

"Is that why Reed's your backup singer?" Winry asked, leaning around Al and Fletcher to talk to him.

"Would you really want to hide all _this,_ " Reed said, gesturing to his pin-and-badge bedecked black vest and spiked collar combo, "behind Fletcher and Russell? I didn't think so. Ling and I are far too fantastic together for that."

"They sounded better together than Ling and Russell do," Fletcher said flatly. "It made sense at the time."

Ed snorted. " _Anyone_ sounds better than Russell."

"Does that mean we won't be hearing him serenade us?" Maes asked. "I was hoping to send my darling Elysia some video of tonight's performances and she'd _love_ to see Russell sing."

"You mean Gracia thinks he's attractive," Roy translated. Maes just smiled and shrugged.

"Enough talk," Reed declared. " _Someone_ needs to get their ass on stage and sing their heart out."

"I volunteer you," Fletcher said and that kicked their karaoke adventures off. Reed was _shameless_ and made a production (it really, truly, wasn't a performance) of " _I'm Too Sexy_ " that ended with Reed sitting in Riza's lap, shirtless. Roy's belly ached from laughter already, and Paninya and Russell following that with " _Love Shack"_ was...Well, it was something. And _hilarious_ , because Russell got really into it about halfway through and Paninya shimmying around the stage _clearly_ doing an impression of Ed was incredible. Roy didn't have words.

He got a small break when some of the locals took the stage for a few songs. Maes was trying to talk Riza into singing and their tables were full of people tossing out ideas for songs and who should sing what.

"I'm telling you, Ling needs to do " _Bohemian Rhapsody,_ " Lan Fan was insisting. "I don't care how good Roy's falsetto is; he can do that song by The Darkness."

"I really don't want to strain my voice," Roy said regretfully. "I have to perform a longer set than you guys every day and I use significantly more of my vocal range than Ling does."

"Okay but what about this," Al suggested. " _Bohemian Rhapsody_ as a group number. Get all of our frontmen up there, see how they compare to a _real_ legend."

"Are you trying to start a fight?" Winry asked him. "You want to put that many divas up on stage together?"

"I highly doubt a fight would break out," Roy said dryly.

"Speak for yourself," Ed said with a sharp grin over his gin. "I'd love to prove to Ling once and for all that I'm the better singer."

Reed came out of _nowhere_ and sprawled over Al and Fletcher. "I sense a bet—"

"No," Fletcher interrupted. "No bets. Let it be a pure musical death match, unsullied by petty bets."

"Queen," Maes said decisively. " _Somebody to Love_. It's a crowd-pleaser that'll challenge them. And I'm filming it."

"I'll judge," Roy said. "Since I'm not killing my voice in a dick measuring contest and you have to agree, I'm _very_ well qualified to judge something like this."

"You're biased," Fletcher said, and Roy...could argue against that, but Fletcher did have a point. He wouldn't just hand victory to Ed, he'd have to earn it with a fantastic rendition of the song, but Roy was, perhaps, slightly more inclined to view Ed's performance favorably. Roy reluctantly nodded in agreement and, somewhat tellingly, Ed looked a little pleased and a lot flushed about that. Well, that was _fascinating_ and Roy was going to have to investigate further.

"How about Riza and Maes judge them?" he suggested as a compromise.

"But this needs to be filmed for posterity," Maes protested. "I can't film and give this the very serious consideration it's due at the same time!"

"You're not the only one whose phone takes decent video," Roy pointed out. "Literally any one of us can film this."

Maes finally acquiesced and Winry got Riza's attention, explaining what was about to happen.

"So how are we doing this?" Ling asked. "Are we going to the song together and split verses and choruses or are we each going to do the full song?"

"Full song," Riza decided. "Assuming we're allowed."

They were; the KJ announced that there was going to be a sing-off and the audience needed to help the judges decide with their applause. Ling went first and made a very impressive showing; Roy absolutely would have given him points for style, swagger and sustaining some of those notes, but Roy wanted to stay in Ed's good graces. He was deeply invested in getting Ed divested of his pants and, if he was lucky, and if Ed won, Roy might get lucky. So of course, he threw his support behind Ed's performance and cheered almost as loudly as Ed's bandmates. Roy wished he could give points for how beautifully Ed's back arched when he threw his head back to hold a note, but that probably wasn't the criteria Ed's performance was being judged on. Pity, because it was really a 10/10. Roy would absolutely be delighted to watch again.

Sadly, Ed lost.

Ling's band met him at the tiny stage and they headed to the bar for a celebratory drink. Ed slumped back into the seat next to Roy and accepted a consoling pat from Alphonse before he and Winry took the stage for another song.

"I voted for you," Roy said loyally.

"Yeah, 'cause that did so much good," Ed said with an eyeroll. "Ling's gonna being fucking unbearable until I kick his ass at something else or he gets distracted."

"I'm trying to comfort you," Roy told him. "You're supposed to graciously accept my comfort and be soothed by my support."

"You realize we're not in a gothic romance novel, right?" Ed asked him. He stole what was left of Roy's drink and knocked it back. "You're so fucking weird."

"You like it," Roy said. "You'd have no idea what to do with me if I was normal. You'd be bored. You'd be drowning your sorrows in awful beer instead of getting comforted by a world famous rock star."

"This," Ed said, holding up Roy's now empty glass, "is not comfort."

"You have a better idea?" Roy asked, and quickly gauging Ed's mood, he took a chance. He reached out for Ed's hand, gently tugging it towards him, thumbing the soft skin on the inside of his wrist before he took the glass back. Ed's breath hitched and Roy smiled.

"A few, actually," Ed said, shaking his bangs out of his eye and looking up at Roy through his lashes. "More comin' to me every minute."

Roy was about to lean in and whisper some suggestions in Ed's ear when Maes exclaimed something loudly. Roy closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, because of course Maes ruined the moment.

"Yeah!" Winry was saying enthusiastically. "It was totally life changing, I'd never seen a music video _that cool_ before. I taped it and spent hours trying to learn the choreography."

"She made me and Ed learn it too," Al said. "I, jeez, I might still know some of it? Winry was a very demanding teacher."

"Hey!" Winry said indignantly and Roy was pretty sure he heard the sound of her punching Al in the shoulder. "I'm not demanding! I'm just….thorough."

"Oh god," Ed said. "I can't _believe_ she's telling Maes about that."

Roy was about to ask when he remembered Al and Winry telling him when they met that they'd been huge Hyuroi fans and at some point, Roy had found out that Winry and the Elrics had taught themselves some of the " _Burning Hearts_ " choreography.

"You know," Maes said. "Roy said something about that. If you remember any of it I would _love_ to see it; Gracia would as well! She was one of the featured dancers in Roy's sequence. And our daughter _loves_ to watch people perform, especially to her daddy's music."

"Really?" Winry sounded _delighted_ about that. "I'm not sure sure about the dancing, but we should definitely be able to sing it. Al, where's Ed?"

"Hide me," Ed begged, sliding down in his seat and leaning into Roy a little. "Please. I can't take that much more humiliation tonight."

"You're greatly overestimating how much I like you versus how amusing this is going to be," Roy told him. "You should have just graciously accepted my comfort earlier."

"Ed's right here," Roy called out loudly.

"I hate you," Ed muttered.

"No you don't," Roy said sunnily, shoving him out of the booth.

"You're a fucking _bastard_ ," Ed said even as Winry and Al were grabbing him and dragging him up towards the tiny stage.

"It's for _Elysia_ ," Roy said. "She's adorable and it'll make her very happy."

"Hate," was all Ed managed before he was out of earshot. Roy just grinned and looked for someone to film Fullmetal Alchemist's performance, because Roy just _knew_ it was going to be worth losing whatever ground he'd gained tonight with Ed; he was going to want to savor this in the future.


	12. Chapter 12

"After Edris, Greedling and Mulan Fan stop Gluttony—"

Paninya burst onto the bus, totally interrupting Al's epic dungeon master narration.

"Play your nerdy imaginary dice game _later_ ," Paninya said, shoving their map and Lan Fan's popcorn off the amp case they were using as a table. "Look!" She shoved her phone in front of Al. Ed leaned over her shoulder to see what got her back on the bus when she knew they were playing D&D. All Ed could see was a list.

"What?" Winry asked, impatiently.

" _Caduceus_ broke top twenty!" Paninya yelled.

Winry grabbed Paninya's phone and started shrieking. Ed was already pulling up the Amestris music charts on his phone and right there, _well_ within the top 20 on the Rock charts, was their album. He pulled up the Alternative charts; they'd jumped a couple spots and were sitting _just_ outside top ten.

Fletcher was high fiving Al, but Al was having none of that; he just pulled Fletcher in for a hug. Ed was too distracted by how _awesome_ it was that _Caduceus_ charted so highly to make fun of them. Ed texted Izumi with a bunch of exclamation marks, then accepted a congratulatory grope from Reed and grabbed Winry for a hug. Paninya wrapped her arms around them and pretty soon it was a group hug. Ed's band was the _best_. They had an almost Top 10 album, which was a huge fucking deal. Like Izumi kept saying, singles were _easy_ (relatively) but selling a complete album? That was a _huge_ fucking accomplishment.

Ed texted Roy, because this was the best news ever and because right now, Alchemical Romantics didn't have anything charting particularly high (though that would only last until they finished their new album). Ed was going to rub that in his face because right now, Ed's weird little band from the middle of nowhere, with a self-produced album, was a Big Deal.

Fucking badass.

_album just broke top 20, we're fucking awesome_

Roy replied almost immediately: _Congrats, now you have to break top 10_

_fuck you_

_We'll talk when you're #1_

Ed could feel his cheeks heating; fucking Mustang was such a dick.

Then again: _fucking_ Mustang.

There was no way Roy actually meant it like that. The man was a flirt and a tease and he was way the hell too damned amused by how easily he could make Ed blush. It was like his hobby or something, finding new ways to make Ed turn red, drop stuff, choke on his drink, or otherwise react to Roy.

But still.

Ed _had_ thought about it. And he'd be thinking about it again, because Roy was funny and gorgeous and he sent Ed flirty texts. So yeah, Mustang was a dick, but there were a lot of things Ed would like to do with his dick— things he _probably_ shouldn't be thinking about in the middle of a crowded lounge with his baby brother about three feet away. He'd just have to think about those possibilities later on, in his bunk.

Ed stopped staring at his phone and tuned into the conversations going on around him again.

"Next week guys," Paninya was saying. "It's gonna be a whole different world. The video for " _Up Against the Stars_ " is hitting this weekend. It's gonna be huge, we're going to be number one. Bet you a coffee run."

"You're pretty cocky," Reed said. "I like that, let's raise the stakes. A coffee run and breakfast for the whole bus."

"Deal." Al was still hugging Fletcher; Ed was pretty sure that wasn't going to change any time soon. " _Up Against the Stars_ has been doing pretty good and we're completing a music video _trilogy_ , people are going to rewatch them all. We're going to make it."

Ed was confident about his band; they'd been steadily climbing the charts and no one actually specified _which_ chart they needed to hit number one on. But maybe he could do something to help tip the scales.

_do me a huge favor mustang and post a pic of you listening to our album_

_Why? And what's in it for me?_

_band honor is at stake_ Ed texted back quickly. _there's a bet you could help us win_

Ed hesitated, because there were a lot of ways he could reply to the second half of Roy's text. He hesitated over it too long; Roy had already replied. He must have his phone out and be giving it, giving _Ed_ , his complete attention.

_Say no more, bets get a free pass_

Well, Ed couldn't let a line like _that_ go.

_you could make a pass_

Ed paused, wondering how far to push it, then shot off another. _maybe make some plans for when we're #1_

It took a full minute or so before he got a reply, most of which Ed spent blushing, hoping he'd read Roy correctly and that no one on his bus noticed Ed's current state of awkward.

_We've got a hotel night next week. Swap roommates with me, we can celebrate or commiserate your album together_

Roy hadn't—

He couldn't really?

Ed stared at the conversation thread and realised that either Roy was the biggest asshole ever who took jokes way the fuck too far or he was actually, possibly, maybe even _probably,_ serious about doing something with him.

"C'mon Ed," Winry said, snapping him out of his mini-revelation. "We're celebrating! Everyone headed for the sketchy park grills, Fletcher unearthed marshmallows and Al and Paninya are going to share their chocolate stash! And Maria and Lan Fan are going on a booze run, we're gonna get started with Ling's vodka."

"The shitty sugar cookie flavored crap?" Ed confirmed almost on autopilot.

"It's... okay, it _is_ that bad,' Winry said, wrinkling her nose. "But it's here and it's free, which is pretty much all we're looking for right now. Besides, the caramel one isn't _that_ bad. And on the bright side, whatever Lan Fan and Maria bring back will be a huge improvement!"

"Pass," Ed said. "Look, I'm fucking thrilled about the album. It's kinda the best thing that's ever happened with the band, but I've gotta take care of a thing—" he waved his phone, figuring Winry would interpret it more or less correctly.

"Are you texting Roy?" Winry asked and, for once, she didn't look like she was about to tease him. Ignoring a significant career milestone and the debauched celebration that came with it was probably some kind of red flag for his life taking a turn for the weird. Maybe it's actually a green flag? Ed was pretty sure this was a positive development.

"I might actually call him," Ed said quietly. "He—" Ed decided that actually showing her what had him so distracted was going to be faster. "Here," he said, scrolling up to the start of the relevant part and handing her his phone.

Winry's eyes widened and she took in a sharp breath. "Oh wow, that's. Well, it's not exactly unexpected, but I wasn't sure how serious he was."

"Same," Ed said with a slightly hysterical laugh. "Shit, I never would have thought he'd even want to be friends, you know? And he flirts with—okay, not everyone, but a lot of people. I don't even know how to respond to this."

"Well," Winry said, taking a seat on one of the abandoned couches. "I know you think he's hot; that's been a basic fact of your existence since we were like, eleven, and watching Hyuroi videos on YouTube. Do you actually like him?"

"Way the fuck too much," Ed told her. He tapped his phone. "Which is why I don't know how to respond, 'cause that's right on the line of maybe a joke, maybe he's serious about like, casually hooking up."

"And you don't want that," Winry surmised. "What you do want is...?"

"More than a one night stand," Ed said. "Pretty sure if we just fucked the one time, it might actually be worse than if we never hooked up."

"It might give us some great songs though," Winry said thoughtfully. Ed punched her lightly in the thigh.

"Ow!" she exclaimed. "Okay, too soon to joke about your pain, whatever. And yes, I am aware that you're talking about your feelings for once and I should reward you instead of mocking you. But you have to admit, this is pretty funny. Your teenage celebrity crush might actually want to hook up with you, but you're being an emo kid about it."

Ed glared at her and she started snickering.

"You're just making it worse," Winry said. "You're still wearing your stupid black button down, I'm like eighty percent sure you used your red stage tie as a belt instead of putting it away like a normal person, I can _tell_ you redid your eyeliner, and you're glaring at me like an angry kitten. You're like a parody of an emo kid right now."

" _This_ is why I don't talk about my feelings," Ed snapped.

"You just write songs about them?"

"I hate you so much, you're a useless best friend."

"Okay, okay," Winry said with an eyeroll. "I'll stop. My advice? Figure out what the hell you actually want, then tell him. Worst that'll happen is he says no, then you can write passive-aggressive song lyrics about him and we can prank their bus the rest of tour. Everyone wins."

"Seriously," Ed told her. "Worst friend. Go drink Ling's gross vodka while I talk to Mustang, then there'll just be decent stuff left for me to drink when I get there."

Winry left him with a wave and Ed reread Roy's last couple of texts a few more times.

_you never made a pass so you don't get to make plans for when my band goes #1_

It was a few minutes before Roy replied; Ed tried to pretend that he wasn't freaking out a little while he waited.

_I've been making passes all summer, surely those count?_

_HOTEL NIGHT none of my band snores i gotta know it's worth the swap_

_Well when you put it like that yes, it's a serious consideration. I don't snore, for what it's worth_

_not exactly a ringing endorsement to become roomies_

_How about I give your album a ringing endorsement and we see where it goes?_

_deal_

Later, Alchemical Romantics' twitter posted a photo of Roy in just his boxers, obnoxious red headphones in place with just enough of his laptop screen visible to make out Fullmetal Alchemist's distinctive album design in his iTunes.

_@RoyMustang won't stop playing the @FMA_Band album if it wasn't awesome we'd kill him -Havoc #MusicMonday #TransmutedTour_


	13. Chapter 13

Predictably, Roy's half-naked photo and recommendation went a little bit viral, mostly on Tumblr, but whatever. Good press was good press and _Caduceus_ hit number one. Ed wasn't sure how long it was going to hold the spot, but right now he didn't care because in this one perfect moment he had the best selling album in the country, he was on tour with the best band in the world, and they were going to play to an awesome crowd later.

Life was pretty fucking grand.

Even if the bus's air conditioning was having issues and his automail was being a pain in the ass.

Winry and the driver were trying to fix it, but in the meantime she'd waved him and Paninya off. The last thing they needed was to spend half the day in the medical tent because of their automail. Paninya was already holed up with the Dogs of the Military and Ed was kind of jealous, because he sort of wanted to be Olivier Armstrong when he grew up.

Also: working air conditioning.

But Miles had already texted him that their bus was full of musicians with automail and Falman banned them from letting them take any more in just in case there was a fire.

Ed's next plan was to see if Fuery and Roy would take pity on him and his metal limbs. He texted Fuery to see if they had space (and to find out where they were parked) and wandered a little aimlessly through the field full of buses and vans. Ed found the Ouroboros bus and briefly thought about seeing if they'd take pity on him stealing their air conditioning, but that...might not be worth it, actually. He had nothing against Ouroboros; they were pretty fun to hang out with, actually, but dealing with _all_ of them by himself? Maybe not the best idea.

Envy was sitting outside their bus with a tablet, probably working on their tan, but Ed wouldn't put it past them to be plotting world domination. It seemed like the kind of thing they would be into. Ed went over to say hi and steal a water bottle from the nearby cooler.

"You're lucky Archer isn't here," Envy told him. "He'd make you trade for it."

"Trade what?" Ed said with an eyeroll. "It's a million degrees out and inhuman to hoard water and shit."

"He's stuck on this chord progression," Envy said dismissively. "It's honestly kind of annoying at this point, but he swears it's the start of something brilliant and he wants second opinions. Possibly some piano. Unless you want to deal with that, I'd suggest you avoid him."

"Doesn't Solaris play piano?" Ed asked. He was pretty sure keytar was connected closely enough to actual keyboards that it was a reasonable assumption, but Ouroboros literally made a career of fucking with assumptions, so. Who knew?

"She does," Envy confirmed. "She's also sick of this stupid pre-chorus or whatever it is Archer's working on. She's hiding out with Dante's Inferno. Don't tell anyone I told you, she'd kill me."

"Mid-tour band homicide time?" Ed asked sympathetically. Because Fullmetal Alchemist had came off a tour before Transmuted, they'd passed through the homicidal phase and back into best friends and professional awesome a few weeks ago.

"Tony ate all of her cereal. And her chocolate stash."

"Fucking bastard."

"Exactly," Envy agreed. Ed saluted them with his water bottle and then checked his phone.

Fuery had texted back: Alchemical Romantics had space on their bus and they were parked near _trees_. Ed headed off to find their bus; he couldn't wait to see them.

It took him a little while; Fuery's directions hadn't been that great and Ed almost literally stumbled into another detour when he practically crashed into one of The Chimera's guitarists, Dolcetto. The Chimera's hadn't made it big in Amestris yet, but they were _incredible_ and Ed made everyone he hung out with listen to at least one of their albums. Ed and Dolcetto got talking, which was _awesome,_ and then Dolcetto called Martel Ivarsson over to say hi. Martel was one of Ed's _favorite_ guitarists (and one of Winry's personal heroes) and getting the chance to talk with her was _totally_ on his Transmuted bucket list.

Ed finally made his way towards the trees; finding the Alchemical Romantics' bus after that wasn't too difficult. Ed was looking forward to collapsing on one of the couches and basking in their air conditioning, maybe raiding their snack stash. Fuery thwarted that plan, though. The driver-side couch was covered in guitar cases and sound equipment, clearly courtesy of Kain, while he was sprawled out on the other couch with a laptop. There was some space to squeeze in, but Havoc took it while Ed was rummaging through their cabinets looking for Roy's ramen stash.

Roy bought _decent_ ramen (if there was such a thing) and since he'd offered to share it with Ed before, Ed figured it was cool if he stole some for brunch. He was debating making Roy food as well when he noticed that Havoc and Kain had ruined his plans.

"Hey, I was going to sit there!"

"Too bad," Havoc said. He was leaning forward, watching something on Kain's computer. "We're in the middle of a Blind Alchemist marathon. Season three starts next week."

"Fuckers," Ed said. He was way behind on his Netflix shows and they just had to remind him. "No spoilers."

"Shhhh," Kain said with a hand wave. "Opening's half over. You're just here for our AC; go bug Roy in the back lounge."

"Fine," Ed said. Since he was apparently going to be hanging out with Roy this afternoon (and he was eating Roy's food) he decided that yeah, he should make Roy some ramen. He rummaged around for another cleanish container to put it in while the microwave ran. Ed settled for an oversized mug (and wow, Alchemical Romantics _really_ needed to do their dishes or buy some more) and after some deliberation, added in some Sriracha. He went light on it, because he couldn't remember how much Roy liked.

Ed's hands were full of ramen and of fucking _course,_ the back lounge's door was closed, so Ed kicked it with his automail foot until whoever was inside (presumably Roy) opened it. He was not prepared for what awaited him inside.

A notebook had exploded; so had some sheet music. Roy was shirtless, still in his pajama pants, and with messier hair than usual. He had two guitars out and someone's laptop was precariously perched on the edge of a table with GarageBand open. Wordlessly, Roy grabbed the oversized mug of ramen Ed had held out to him

"Hi?" Ed asked.

Roy mumbled something around a mouthful of noodles.

"I see you're writing," Ed continued, since Roy clearly wasn't going to hold up his side of the conversation right now. He looked at the mess and then looked at Roy's...everything. There was a lot of skin on display; his sleep pants were riding pretty low and Ed was distracted for a second.

"Did you even go to bed last night?"

"Couldn't sleep," Roy finally replied. "Figured I'd do something more useful than staring at the bottom of Denny's bunk all night."

"Can I take a look?" Ed asked. Roy shrugged, so Ed figured it must be early or late enough in the writing process that he was okay with sharing.

The first couple of sheets he looked at were guitar parts; another had what looked like it might be a good hook. He found the lyrics when he took a seat by the microphone they'd wedged in by the built-in table. A few phrases stood out ( _I couldn't bring myself to call/Except to call it quits)_ ; Ed liked the word play. He slurped more of his noodles, poking through a couple handwritten pages ( _weighed down with words too over-dramatic_ ) and what looked like an e-mail print out ( _Anything you say can and will be held against you/So only say my name/It will be held against you_ ).

"Huh," Ed pronounced. "These are fucking great."

Roy sighed deeply, sinking into the couch. "Well, someone thinks so at least."

"No seriously," Ed said. "I like how clever they are, and this—" he tapped the pages in front of him, "looks like it could be awesome, once you polish it up a bit and find the right melody."

"Tell me something I don't know," Roy said sarcastically.

"Fuck you," Ed said. "I'm the frontman of the best-selling band in Amestris. You should be paying me for this kind of input."

Roy cracked a grin at that and Ed felt like he'd accomplished something good today. He pulled out some of the lyrics that kept catching his eye. Silently he passed them over to Roy. _When the moon found the sun/He looked like he was barely hanging on/But his eyes saved his life_

Roy—was Roy _blushing?_ Ed filed that away for potential teasing later. Right now was about the music.

"That's awesome," Ed said. "I want to hear _that_ song. Tell me about it?"

Roy blew his bangs out his eyes and looked at Ed for a moment. "It's a love song," Roy said slowly. "Not exactly the band's usual, but it's something within my repertoire. I keep imagining it with strings or something, but again. Not the _band's_ usual."

"Is it a Roy Mustang solo album song or something that could become an Alchemical Romantics song with some work?" Ed asked shrewdly.

"Maybe not either," Roy said. He studied Ed and Ed was pretty sure Roy's brilliant musical brain was making some quick calculations. He hoped Roy would just tell him whatever the fuck it was that him acting so weird about these lyrics.

"It might be a Fullmetal Alchemist song," Roy said quietly. "Or at least, one _inspired_ by Fullmetal Alchemist." Roy's dark eyes met Ed's and he seemed to be trying to communicate telepathically. Ed was missing something here. Roy seemed to lose patience with him and handed Ed another sheet. It had part of a melody and a quickly scrawled _piano?!?!?!?!_ in the corner

_So he said, Would it be all right_

_If we just sat and talked about art_

_And in exchange for your time_

_I give you my heart_

Ed's eyes widened when he read the hand-written lyrics. They were on an old Transmuted Tour schedule, and he had a pretty good idea what conversation they were referencing.

"Oh," Ed said shakily. " _That_ kind of inspired by."

"Yeah," Roy said a little uncomfortably.

"Well," Ed started. He could feel himself blushing, but he was going to get through this even if it killed him. "I mean. I don't know if you heard, but my album's number one. We had a deal, Mustang. If I hit number one. Something about hotels, we left the details pretty vague."

Roy didn't quite seem to get what Ed was saying, if his expression was anything to go by. Ed tried again.

"We could collaborate. On this," he gestured to Roy's lyrics. "You wanted piano and I play; we can figure it out. At the hotel. And later. Like, it'll take awhile. Good songs take time and shit."

Roy got it.

Roy _definitely_ got it; that smirk was obscene. "Well," Roy practically purred, "I do like to experiment with musical styles, so we could be working on this for awhile. Maybe the rest of the tour."

"Awesome." Ed put his bowl of now-cold noodles down and crossed the short distance to Roy's couch. Deliberately, he straddled Roy's lap, burying his hands in Roy's hair. Roy obligingly tilted his head up, and Ed leaned in close enough for their lips to almost touch.

"Let's start with the rhythm section."

Roy laughed and finished closing the distance between them, kissing Ed fiercely.

Ed had spent plenty of time thinking about kissing Roy Mustang over the years; the man was _gorgeous_. Getting the know the music geek and alchemy nerd who loved making dumb jokes and was hilariously particular about his coffee hadn't lessened that. The man behind the abs and that _voice_ was even more attractive and Ed had, honest to god, been _pining_ ; it was embarrassing. It was less embarrassing now that he'd seen Roy's awesomely sappy lyric ideas and it got even less embarrassing the longer they kissed.

Roy's hands couldn't settle in one spot; they kept running up and down Ed's back, pulling him closer. Ed didn't have any objections; closer to Roy—shirtless Roy who moaned prettily when Ed tugged on his hair—was pretty much _exactly_ where Ed wanted to be. Roy's hands drifted further down Ed's back; unsurprisingly, they settled on his ass and Ed couldn't help but laugh.

"You're fucking predictable," Ed murmured in Roy's ear.

In response, Roy squeezed his ass and ground their hips together. "You know exactly how good you look in those jeans."

Ed finally let go of Roy's hair and traced his spine, earning a shiver. He was going to repeat that move, but Roy decided he needed to find every sensitive spot on Ed's neck. It was an _excellent_ distraction; Ed froze, digging his nails into Roy's back when he found one particular spot. They both groaned and Ed lost what little control he had when Roy's teeth grazed that spot on his neck. He whimpered pathetically and Roy kept at it; Ed _knew_ there was going to be mark but he didn't fucking care. Roy could do whatever the hell he wanted.

Roy's hands hadn't left his ass yet, which was a good thing because when Roy bit down lightly on the curve of his neck, Ed's back arched involuntarily and he would have fallen off Roy's lap. Roy slide a hand up under his shirt to the small of Ed's back, steadying him. Ed felt a little exposed, with his shirt half pulled up and legs splayed over Roy's, leaving very little to the imagination. Roy seemed appreciative, at least.

"You're gorgeous," Roy said reverently. "Can I take your shirt off?"

"No," Ed said, sitting himself more securely in Roy's lap. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it off, tossing it somewhere on the floor. Ed grinned when he saw Roy's expression change from badly concealed disappointment to delight. Roy's hands resettled around his waist and Ed leaned in to kiss him again.

Ed lost himself in the moment. He'd forgotten how much he liked kissing and how much fun it was to lazily make out with someone. Roy finally broke away to catch his breath and Ed felt equal parts smug and turned on by how wrecked Roy looked already.

"You're going to kill me," Roy said, still a little breathless.

"Only a little bit. You're not _that_ old."

"Only a little death, you mean," Roy corrected, squeezing Ed's ass again in emphasis. "And I'm not _old_ , I just wasn't expecting to hook up with you today."

"Yeah well, I didn't expect you to write _lyrics_ about me," Ed said lamely. He still hadn't fully processed that or the potential implications there. He could deal with that later; right now he had a half-naked Roy Mustang at his mercy. Roy looked like he was about to say something else, so Ed kissed him again to shut him up. They had way better things to do right now than talk; Roy could discuss that "giving you my heart" business _later_ , when Ed had a better chance of muddling through a conversation about _feelings_.

They didn't leave the back lounge until Ed's phone started going off and he realized he had to run to soundcheck.


	14. Chapter 14

Whatever Ed was doing with Roy (dating? It was probably dating, but they hadn't talked about it) was _awesome_. And maybe Ed would call it eerily similar to what they'd been doing before, except there was nothing eerie about it and it was a lot more fun to hang out with Roy when kissing was an option. Easier to shut him up, too. If he'd known that grabbing Roy's ass and kissing him was all it would take to shut him up and win a debate, Ed would have started this a month ago.

Finding a semi-secluded space to get up close and personal with Roy was now Ed's second favorite thing about tour. Roy was pretty much the most attractive person on tour _and_ really fucking great at kissing (Ed got the singer thing now, he really did: fucking _breath control_ ) and Ed wanted more, always. But even losing himself in Roy and whatever they were doing, it still came second to Ed's favorite part of tour: playing. Ignoring all the professional musician and contractual obligation bullshit, Ed just loved being on stage.

Roy got it.

The rush when he took the stage and saw the crowd, how much _fun_ it was to play music with some of his favorite people in the world. How incredible it was to hear people scream his lyrics back, the energy cycling between the band and the fans. It was the best feeling and Ed pretty much lived for playing live.

Roy got it, and he was never going to be pissy about Ed getting distracted by a song idea or taking the time to talk with a fan and sign some stuff. He was never going to try and distract Ed from soundcheck, because Roy had to cut things short to make his own soundchecks. Roy carried extra sharpies in his pockets, and Ed lost track of how many times he asked for a page of Ed's alchemy journal to write down _something_ for a song in progress.

It was official: Ed was only dating musicians from now on. Roy ruined him for anyone else.

Roy also spoiled him, coming to see Ed's band play so often. He didn't catch all of Ed's sets now that they were whatever, because that would actually be a little weird and like, a total waste of touring with so many kickass bands, but Roy caught enough of them to be flattering. Ed knew he was a damn good frontman—he gave a good show and actually mostly sounded like he did in the studio because he actually wrote and played his own music and didn't overproduce his voice and shit. Roy showing up, usually with Maes or one of his bandmates (and in one memorable instance, with both Armstrong siblings), was flattering as fuck. Roy had been in the business too long and had too much going on to waste his limited free time watching someone play if they weren't _good._

The other way Roy spoiled him and ruined him for other people:

Standing side stage, looking like a scene pinup, fucking singing alongand being all _distracting_ —then making up for it afterwards, once Ed caught his breath, pushing him against a road case and making him lose his breath all over again.

Post-show makeouts were the best, and the only thing that might be better would be post-show sex. Ed was going to find that out, one way or another, before Transmuted ended.

But first, he had to play today's annoyingly early set. He'd been spoiled by having a couple days in a row where Fullmetal Alchemist's slot was near four p.m. and today he really missed having that extra two hours or so hang out with people and meet fans. He actually had to set an _alarm_ to make sure he had enough time between getting up and when he had to be at soundcheck to do a Twitter Q &A with Al .

The show might have been annoyingly early, but there was _nothing_ like playing " _Silver Luck"_ and hearing the fans sing the chorus back to him and Winry. Smoothly, Winry slid into the second verse; her voice wasn't quite as haunting this far into tour, but she still sounded great and Ed beamed when people tried to hit the high notes with her, because how fucking cool was that? He spun in a couple circles, still playing and then jumped on a monitor wedge to try and express how kickass it was. From his new vantage point, Ed get see how big the crowd was and he started grinning when he saw a group of girls obviously swooning over Winry and just barely heard someone shouting that they loved Al through the mix in his in-ear monitors.

Ed was about to jump off his wedge when he spotted Roy standing side stage, back far enough that he probably wasn't visible to the crowd. Ed wanted to wave, but there was a guitar in the way. Muscle memory was the _best_ , though, because he didn't miss the transition to the bridge while he was distracted. Ed came fully back into the song, singing along with Winry, and didn't let Roy distract him for the rest of the set. He only had another fifteen minutes or so to play and wanted to make the most of it; he'd have _hours_ to hang out with Roy and his friends after this.

They'd changed their set order slightly after " _Up Against the Stars"_ came out; they had started the summer playing it towards the beginning, but since it was currently the number one song in the country, they'd started playing it last. Winry and Al faked the crowd out twice already, by starting the intro before switching to a different track and Ed had taken a minute to talk to the crowd and tease them with a mention of how'd they'd almost been late because Ling had stolen the last of Ed's takeout and wasn't that an inelegant crime. The crowd went _nuts_ and Ed almost started laughing at their reaction when they started the intro of " _Anything Please, Except Defeat_ " instead. This time though, when he and Winry each held up a hand for silence, they weren't faking anyone out. Ed waited a beat, then started acapella.

"You will only hear these elegant crimes— Fall on your ears from criminal dimes—"

Winry came in _hard_ after that and oh, it was so worth the time it took to come up with this arrangement. The crowd fucking lost it and Ed spent the whole song a little high from the crowd's energy and just how _into_ the song they were.

Roy caught him when he finally bounced off stage, elated from his set.

"Hey," Roy said, his voice just low enough to catch Ed's interest and make him shiver. They had a couple hours until either of them had to be anywhere and Ed was definitely up for exploring new ways to come down from a performance high.

"Hey yourself," he said, sliding a hand down Roy's back. "Didn't expect to see you. Aren't you usually still waking up and working on stuff with Hughes at this hour?"

Roy smiled and Ed was a little distracted by it, then more distracted by Roy pulling him in for a kiss that started off chaste enough. Al made a retching noise and Roy, because he was _awesome_ and mind reader, just tugged on Ed's ponytail and deepened it into something filthier and a lot more hot.

"Oh gross," Al said. "I'm gonna go barf in your bunk now, brother."

Ed moved his hand from Roy's ass long enough to flip Al off.

Roy finally stopped kissing him and it took Ed a second to realize that there was a probably a reason why kissing was no longer happening. He blinked up at Roy, who looked like he was waiting for something.

"Huh?" was all Ed managed.

"Have you eaten yet?" Roy repeated.

Ed thought about making some kind of innuendo about Roy's dick for a second, but actually, food sounded like a good idea.

"No," he said irritably. "Fucking Ling ate my leftovers; I had a protein bar awhile ago. I'm starving, let's hit catering and then pick this—" he traced his automail fingers down Roy's spine, "—up again later."

"Or," Roy suggested. "We could go into town and get lunch. It's about fifteen minutes to downtown. My band's played one of the clubs a couple times. We've never really seen the town, but we've had good luck with food. Google says it's a college town and there are several excellent places to get coffee."

Ed really wanted to say yes. _Good_ coffee was nonexistent on tour and real fucking food and a break from the bus and his band would be incredible. And getting to spend some time with Roy, on something maybe like a real date? Ed desperately wanted to go, but he hesitated. He knew _exactly_ what his bank account looked like. Shitty gas station coffee and store brand stuff for the bus fridge was about all he could afford until the next royalty check came in.

Roy was waiting for an answer and Ed wasn't sure how to say no and not look like a dick because it wasn't Roy; Ed really wanted to spend more time with Roy. He didn't want to admit that he was that broke, either; Ed did all right for a musician, but he'd only had a number one album for about a week and a half and a lot of the new financial details were still being sorted out.

Roy _got_ it, though.

His lips quirked up into a soft smile and he flicked Ed's bangs out of his eyes.

"My treat," he offered. "You can get the next one."

"There better be really fucking good coffee," Ed said. "And I don't put out until the third date."

Roy choked a little and turned red, which made Ed smirk. He finally broke Roy's embrace to finish packing his guitar up.

"How are we getting to town, anyway?" Ed asked.

"Rebecca's giving us a ride," Roy said. "We're meeting her and Lan Fan at your bus."

"The more the merrier or whatever," Ed said a little awkwardly. Ed was a little surprised to hear they'd have company. He _liked_ Lan Fan and Rebecca, and normally would be happy to hang out. But Roy had almost made this sound like it was going to be a date, not a group outing. He tried to hide his disappointment.

"In this case, yes," Roy said dryly. "Bad enough that Rebecca has to come with us for security, do you really want to have to entertain her as well?"

When Roy put it like that...Ed hadn't thought about the security aspect at all, too used to thinking about Roy and his bandmates as four more friends of his, but they were _actually_ world-famous. Jean and Roy (especially Roy) had a dedicated security detail in the form of Rebecca Catalina. Ed know that there was some leeway if Roy wasn't going someplace he'd be easily recognized, but the town so close to a Transmuted stop that the fairgrounds were nearly downtown? There's no way he'd be able to go without Rebecca. Bringing Lan Fan along to keep her occupied and not a third wheel chaperone was brilliant.

"Wait," Ed said suddenly, a little suspicious. "Is this why Decaydance played so early too? So you could get Lan Fan to distract Rebecca?"

"Maybe," Roy said, obviously trying for mysterious but mostly coming across as a dork.

"You totally set this up!" Ed exclaimed, smacking Roy lightly with his guitar case. "I can't believe you pulled strings to move their set time."

Roy didn't look apologetic at all; mostly he looked smug and stupidly kissable.

"Oh fuck me," Ed said, because now that he was thinking about it, it was obvious. "You got our set time moved up too! I _thought_ it was pretty early, you planned this all out. I bet you even have a place picked out."

"I might have called in a favor or two," Roy admitted with a grin. "Worth it though. We've got a couple hours until I've got to soundcheck, so we can take our time. I've got a couple of ideas in mind for lunch. As for fucking, well—" Roy's caught Ed's eye and his eyes darkened; Ed could feel his cheeks heating from Roy's pretty fucking blatant desire. "I've got some ideas for that, too, but I don't think we've got enough time for them this afternoon."

"You're such a fucking sap," Ed told him.

"A fucking sap who's going to buy you lunch from someplace nice _and_ good coffee," Roy reminded him.

"It's official," Ed said with a grin. "My affections are tradeable goods. Congrats, Mustang. You just bought them, 'cause I'm pretty sure I love you right now."

Roy missed a step and almost tripped, which was hilarious. Ed laughed at him, of course, but he was also nice enough to steady him and grab his arm to make sure Roy didn't trip over thin air again.


	15. Chapter 15

Roy was woken up by his phone ringing. Blearily, he answered it, because throwing it out of his bunk wouldn't stop the ringing and then he wouldn't be able to hit snooze on his alarm.

"What," was about all he could manage right now. Possibly also yes and no, but Roy was more interested in ending this call than a conversation.

"I just wanted to let you know I landed safely!" Maes said in an annoyingly chipper voice. "I'm about to meet Gracia and see my darling Elysia. I'm sure she's grown, I'll send you photos!"

"What?" Roy tried again, because what the hell was Maes on about this time?

"You forgot I was flying home this morning, didn't you?"

"Maybe," Roy admitted. Though, now that he was conscious and had to think about things, he did remember that he'd gotten a lot closer to drunk than he'd been in years and a goodbye party did sound like a reasonable explanation for that. Especially since he was pretty sure Reed and Buccaneer had a hand in whatever they'd all gotten up to last night.

"Well I did, and now I'm almost at baggage claim," Maes said, and Roy was fairly certain he was laughing at him.

"How are you awake and not hungover?" Roy asked, because that just wasn't fair. Maes was older than him; he should be at least as out of it as Roy was this morning. Early afternoon?

"I've been up for hours," Maes said cheerfully. "And I've had food and coffee and spent my entire flight trying _really_ hard not to laugh at you."

Roy was silent, trying to remember what he'd done last night. It hadn't been a very wild party, considering who was at it. Roy was fairly certain there had been a pretty intense game of Truth or Dare going on in the front lounge, but he didn't remember getting dragged into it. Mostly, he remembered sitting in Ed's lap and talking to Maes and whoever joined them outside.

"Do I want to know what I did?" Roy finally asked.

"You sent me lyrics," Maes said delightedly. " _Amazingly_ sappy, hilarious lyrics that you've clearly been hoarding all summer."

Roy stared at the top of his bunk, trying to figure out how that was different from what he normally did. Roy wrote a lot of things that could become songs and most of them were _terrible_ at first.

"Okay?"

"Let me share a few of them," Maes said and Roy could picture his slightly evil grin. "I'm not sure I can do this justice, but I'll give it a shot." Maes cleared his throat and sang quite clearly _"You'll never be far, I'm keeping you near/Inside of my heart, you're here._ "

Roy groaned because _of course_ those were the lyrics Maes got ahold of. He must have been drunk to give Maes access to that file.

"Please stop," Roy begged.

"Oh no, I think this is _great_ , it has Top 40 potential. Seriously Roy, you've got something here," and because Maes was an asshole of the highest order, he continued reading. " _Cause what you got is/Gold, I know, you're gold_ — it's pretty obvious who you're writing about there, but the part I really like is this one, " _I don't need the stars in the night, I found my treasure/All I need is you by my side, so shine forever,_ " there's kind of a fairy tale thing going on with this. You should run with that idea."

"I hate you," Roy told Maes. "And alcohol. What's it going to take to get you to drop this subject forever?"

"Let me be your best man when you marry Ed."

Roy hung up on him.

Roy's day got significantly better after that. He wasn't particularly hungover and, miraculously, they still had food on the bus after last night, so he didn't even have to brave catering. Jean and Alex were off the bus doing some press, which meant that Roy got a whole couch to himself for most of the afternoon. He did a little bit of work in the form of responding to some e-mail, but mostly he spent the afternoon lounging around in one of Ed's hoodies and watching reality shows on Netflix. They were good distractions; otherwise, he'd have spent the afternoon texting Ed about their evening plans.

It was a hotel night, a rarity on a tour like Transmuted. Between hotel costs and the sheer number of people involved, it was impossible for Transmuted's management to actually book hotels like a regular tour. They did the next best thing: scheduling dates and drive times so that it was possible for individual bands to occasionally book hotel rooms and get a chance to shower and sleep in real beds. Alchemical Romantics was successful enough that, theoretically, they could take advantage of all the hotel night opportunites Transmuted offered, but they'd worked out that it would just be wasted money if they did. They had a perfectly good bus and saving on hotels meant higher per diems and coming home with slightly larger paychecks.

Riza, because she was brilliant and practical, had insisted that the band coordinate hotel nights with the other Powered by Noodles bands to hit a sweet spot with group discounts on a block of rooms. At the time, Roy hadn't cared _who_ they were teaming up with to save money, just that they were. Now he was so very grateful Riza had taken the time to look at the full Transmuted lineup and all their options before booking. Every single hotel night they had—with its single roommate, locking door, unlimited hot water, and large, comfortable beds—Alchemical Romantics shared with Fullmetal Alchemist. Roy made Alex swap rooms with Ed the very first hotel night they had after getting together and it was now their standard room assignment.

Tonight wasn't their first night together, but everything was still so new and it was so difficult to get any real privacy on tour, that in many ways it might as well be. Roy really couldn't wait to get his room key and lock himself and Ed in a room no one could interrupt them in.

Somehow, Roy got through the afternoon. There was a little bit of chaos on the bus before their set; Jean, Alex and Rebecca came back with pizza and there was a scramble to eat, make sure their overnight bags were ready to go, and ensure everyone had their guitars and assorted gear for the show. Roy did his vocal warm ups on the bus and they managed to get the whole band, techs included, to the main stage in time to soundcheck.

Roy was buzzing with energy, feeding off the crowd and his anticipation. It wasn't his best show, but it was a good one. Jean bore the brunt of his extra energy; Roy kept getting up in his space and spent half of their encore on his knees, alternately singing and playing to Jean and probably inspiring another fanfic or two. Jean just kept rolling his eyes and laughing at him.

After they handed their guitars off to Denny, Jean shoved him at Ed.

"You need to go get laid," Jean told him. "I don't need another awkward boner thanks to you."

Roy just wrapped his arms around Jean and batted his eyelashes. "But baby, I just can't contain myself around you."

Ed was laughing and Jean pushed Roy towards him again. Ed caught him and leered at Jean.

"You're more than welcome to join us," Ed said. Roy was fairly certain Ed was joking; they hadn't talked about threesomes yet, but Jean _was_ pretty hot. Jean had turned an interesting shade of red and Roy caught him checking Ed out. Roy...wasn't actually opposed to the idea, but now really wasn't the time.

"Raincheck," Roy declared cheerfully, winking at Jean and Ed. "I have too many plans to add another person in last minute."

Jean looked relieved as he flipped them off. Roy didn't take it personally; they all wanted to get to the hotel as quickly as possible.

Roy could barely keep his hands off Ed during the ride to the hotel. They had the van's middle bench to themselves and Roy took full advantage of it, tracing patterns up and down Ed's thigh. Ed did a remarkably good job keeping his face blank and trying not to obviously react; Roy was close enough to see his blush in the gloom and he could feel Ed's tension, the way he stiffened up and his breath hitched when Roy's fingers wandered a little higher, but no one else could. Ed didn't glare at him, though, and he leaned in close enough for Roy to bury his face in Ed's hair for a moment. He followed the seam of Ed's jeans and pressed a little harder the higher he got; Ed shivered _delightfully_ and Roy hid his grin in Ed's neck.

"Fuckin' tease," Ed muttered.

"You enjoy it," Roy replied softly. "Do you have the keycards already?"

"We're on the fifth floor," Ed said quietly. "Room 520."

Roy didn't reply out loud, he just slid his hand up Ed's thigh to cup his dick through his jeans. Ed made a tiny noise and twitched his hips slightly. Roy gently bit his shoulder before finally removing his hand entirely. Ed glared at him and looked like he was about to creatively curse him out; Roy just grinned.

Ed got his revenge as soon as their door shut. He shoved Roy back against it, pulling him down by his necklace, biting his lip lightly before kissing Roy. Ed was insistent about taking control and Roy melted into it, enjoying how Ed directed him with a firm hand on his choker.

Ed finally stopped kissing him, resting their foreheads together. Roy would have been disappointed, but he needed to catch his breath. Ed still had an automail finger looped through his choker and a proprietary hand on his hip so it wasn't like Ed had completely stopped.

"How d'you like being teased, bastard?" Ed asked him, drawing a tiny circle around his hip bone. Roy shivered and looked down at Ed through his lashes.

"It's pretty great, actually." Roy punctuated his statement with a roll of his hips. "Not exactly what I had planned, but I'm good at improvising—" Roy would have continued, but Ed cut him off with another kiss.

"You talk way the fuck too much sometimes," Ed informed him. "We've got better things to do than to listen to you stroke your ego."

"Mmmh, but what about stroking other things?"

Ed's eyes darkened; pointedly, he slipped his fingers the rest of the way under Roy's v-neck and ran his hand up Roy's side, dragging the shirt up with him. Roy tried to help him remove the shirt, but Ed still had him by the choker and it ended with Ed pinning Roy's wrists above his head while he kissed Roy until he was too turned on to think clearly.

"Bed?" Roy asked breathlessly.

Ed shook his head and nudged Roy towards the bathroom. "Shower, _then_ bed. We're gross from playing and you look really fucking hot when you're wet."

Roy _really_ couldn't argue with that; getting Ed wet and naked was one of his new favorite pastimes and who was he to deny returning the favor? Ed gripped his wrist, tugging him away from the door and Roy couldn't help but gasp. Ed smirked and tightened his grip; Roy's knees weakened slightly. Ed steadied him before smacking him lightly on the hip. Roy made a _stupid_ breathy noise and arched his back; Ed's smirk changed to a bright grin and he pulled Roy into the bathroom.

Later, temporarily sated and clean, they sprawled out on one of the beds. Their legs were tangled together and Ed was lying on his stomach while Roy was half-draped over him, admiring him. Ed was surprisingly muscular for a musician and Roy was a little fascinated by how defined Ed's back was.

"I can feel you staring," Ed said, shifting under Roy's gaze. "It's kinda creepy."

"Sorry," Roy said. "You're just ridiculously attractive and I hardly ever get to see you without a shirt."

Ed snorted and rolled over. He looked up at Roy, raised an eyebrow and asked sarcastically, "Gee, I wonder why?"

"I do, actually," Roy told him. "It's about a million degrees out, you spend half an hour performing in it every day and still I can count the number of times I've seen you shirtless outside a hotel room on one hand."

Ed waved his automail hand and Roy blinked, because _that_ was why?

"You're self-conscious about your automail?"

Roy felt Ed shrug more than he saw it.

"Not the automail, exactly. My scars are pretty bad, and I don't like the looks people give me and the questions they ask, 'cause it isn't any of their business."

Roy thought carefully about his reply. He was very curious about Ed's automail, and since Ed had more or less brought the subject up, it wouldn't be like he was asking out of the blue. But Ed clearly wasn't a fan of the subject. Roy blew his bangs out of his eyes and settled on a middle ground.

"I imagine it was a pain in the ass when you were first learning to play guitar with your arm."

Ed laughed, which surprised Roy. Ed laced their hands together, studying them before answering.

"You have no fucking idea," Ed said, pulling their hands closer. He squeezed Roy's fingers gently and for the first time, it occurred to Roy just how sensitive Ed's automail must be, to be able to hold Roy's hand so carefully and play guitar.

"I'd like to," Roy said quietly. "If you want to talk about it."

Ed looked up at him with a bittersweet smile. "It was a car accident when I was eleven. Fucker ran a light and crashed right into us. Al's arm broke in a couple places, Mom lost part of her right arm 'cause she'd thrown it out to try and protect me and, obviously, you can see what happened to me."

"I'm sorry that happened," Roy said, because what else could he say? He kissed Ed's knuckles and bit back empty commiserations.

"It sucked, but we moved on with our lives. We're lucky we knew the Rockbells, Winry and her grandma do amazing work and Granny fought with the insurance company for ages to make sure they covered everything."

"Winry, your _guitarist_ Winry, helped with your automail?"

Ed grinned up at him. "Winry's a fucking engineering genius, how'd you miss that? Why do you think our gear always works? Alchemy only goes so far."

"...you use alchemy to fix your gear," Roy said faintly. "Of course you do. Let me guess, you're able to fix your van with alchemy too."

"I wish," Ed said dryly. "Al and I don't know enough about all the parts to fix them with alchemy and Winry can't do alchemy, so we have to buy stuff and Winry fixes it."

Roy just shook his head. Ed had to be some kind of alchemy genius, because Roy wouldn't have any idea how to fix a blown out speaker or a broken amp with alchemy. It had never even _occurred_ to him that it was possible to fix delicate electronics with alchemy.

"You're incredible," he told Ed. "Have I told you that recently?"

Ed laughed and pulled him down for a kiss. They spent a few minutes kissing lazily before Roy reluctantly broke away. Normally, he'd let things progress into a delightful round two, but Ed was actually willing to _talk_ tonight and Roy wanted to make the most of it. Besides, they had hours and hours until they had to check out; there was plenty to time to have sex.

"So," Roy prompted. "You got automail. How did that factor into your music?"

"Well, first I thought I'd never play anything again," Ed said quietly. His golden eyes were serious and Roy was fiercely glad Ed hadn't lost his music. He couldn't imagine an Ed who never played in a band; it was unthinkable. "My fine motor control was shit and I didn't think I'd ever get to play a fucking chord, never mind get as good as I'd been before the accident. A doctor suggested Mom and I learn piano with a music therapist to work on the nerve connections and shit, and Granny thought it was a pretty good idea, so we did it."

Ed sighed; it was obvious that this wasn't one of his favorite topics. Roy was honored and privately very pleased that Ed liked and trusted him enough to open up like this. He pulled his hand from Ed's to brush his bangs out of his eyes, trailing his fingers down the curve of Ed's face and, finally, to trace the scars on Ed's shoulder. Ed watched, but didn't try to stop him, and Roy let his fingers rest on the warm metal. Ed held Roy's hand there for a moment before he continued.

"I thought I was gonna hate it, and it'd remind me that I'd never play guitar again or start a band, and for awhile I did, 'cause it was really hard and I sucked forever. But I dunno, like six months in? Stuff started clicking musically. I was still basically playing piano as PT and I sucked, but I started wanting to really learn it. And all the damn piano drills I did made it so I could pick up my guitar again, and, well, here I am."

"Here you are indeed," Roy murmured, leaning in to kiss Ed's shoulder. "In a hotel after playing a show on a famous tour, with your attractive rockstar boyfriend."

"You've always gotta make it about you," Ed said with an eyeroll. "Fucking egotistical bastard."

"I'm a fan of one of those words," Roy said with a grin. "And if we rearrange them slightly, an egotistical bastard could fuck you."

Ed wrapped his legs around Roy's waist, reminding Roy that his own very attractive rockstar boyfriend was equally naked. Roy was about to kiss him again when Ed flipped them and suddenly, Roy was pinned down to the bed with Ed straddling his hips.

"Or," Ed suggested with grin that promised all kinds of filthy fun, "You can shut the hell up and I'll decide how you're gonna make me come this time."

"Good—" Roy started to say, then Ed cut him off with a biting kiss. Roy shut the hell up.


	16. Chapter 16

August snuck up on Roy.

They were heading steadily North City-ward, with the corresponding temperature drop. It was rather wonderful actually, after the humidity of the south and the Aerugo dates. But it made it even harder to keep track of time. Tour was like an alternate dimension to begin with, but the sheer size of Transmuted and the way it become the entire world for long, hot, sunny day followed by even longer, hotter, sunnier day for week after week made it almost impossible to keep track of time.

The only reason Roy even realized it was August and the tour was winding down was because there were only three hotel nights left.

"I can't wait to have a real bed again," Jean said dreamily. "My bed, in my room, that I don't share with anyone. And real food."

"A real shower every day," Breda agreed. "I always forget how much I love those until the last leg of tour."

"Don't," Denny begged from where he was flopped on the floor. "Fuery roped me into helping with the sound equipment load out last night. I'm so gross guys, I don't want to think about it. I just want to find a hose and feel something like clean for five minutes."

"We should get to the next stop early this evening," Alex said. He was taking up half of the couch and petting Jean's hair. "Riza might be able to get a car and we can find a laundromat."

"Ohhh, and we could get dinner someplace that does vegetables," Jean said. "Let's do it!"

It was a travel day; they were going to be stuck in the bus for hours still. Roy was already looking forward to when they stopped to gas up, he wanted a slushy. Maybe he'd switch buses then and ride with Fullmetal Alchemist and Decaydance for awhile.

"Earth to Mustang," Breda said. "Are you even paying attention?"

"Sure," Roy agreed. "Laundry. Dinner. Sounds like a plan. Let me know if Riza makes it happen."

"What's Riza making happen?" Rebecca called out. She was walking towards them, still dressed in her pajamas. Her hair was _hilarious_ , there were curls everywhere.

"Laundry, hopefully," Alex said.

"Ooooooh, yes, please," Rebecca said. "C'mon Roy, help me sweet talk Riza into fucking her precious schedule up and calling in some favors to get a car."

"Fine." Roy heaved himself up dramatically. Riza usually said no to requests like this and told them to pack smarter, but if he and Rebecca asked in just the right way (and Roy swore he'd be exactly where he was supposed to be for the next three days at least) they could usually talk her into most things.

Rebecca touched Roy's arm once they were past the bunks in the tiny space for their bathroom and shower, just enough out of earshot that the guys probably wouldn't overhear too clearly. Far enough, at least, that they'd pretend they couldn't hear anything. Kain was still sleeping and Riza probably had headphones on in the back lounge, so it was about as private as they could get on a moving bus. Roy looked at Rebecca questionably.

"What's up?" she asked him quietly. "You've been weird since last night."

"Ah, it's nothing," he tried to hedge. Rebecca just _looked_ at him. Roy hadn't known her as long as he'd known Riza or Maes and she wasn't technically part of the band, but at the same time, she was _band_ ; she was basically family. She knew him better than most people.

"Really," Roy insisted. 'It's nothing. I just realized that we only have a couple hotel nights left, tour's almost over."

"It's been a pretty good one," Rebecca said. She studied him and seemed to divine something from his expression or maybe his hoodie, he wasn't sure. Roy tugged the ragged cuffs down further. He studied them for a second and couldn't remember who the hoodie belonged to originally. It was bright red and soft, a little tight on him, which didn't really answer the question of what was so special about it or what it told Rebecca.

"Are you going to visit Ed in East City?" Rebecca asked, oddly gentle.

"What? No. Maybe. What the hell does that have to do—"

"You're wearing his hoodie and angsting about the end of tour," Rebecca said with only a little sarcasm. "It's not exactly advanced alchemy, Mustang."

"It's not exactly arithmetic either," he replied sharply.

"Uh, it's pretty obvious, actually..." Rebecca started. The she realized what Roy was trying to say. "Oh! Yeah, okay, I can see that." She leaned against the lounge door and studied him again. "Look, I'm not an expert, but you like him a lot and it looks pretty mutual, so maybe it doesn't have to be a tour fling?"

"We're both recording this fall," Roy said quietly. "In different parts of the country, and then there'll be promo and tour lead in. Best to end it now, right? A clean break and we can stay friends."

"You're _writing_ this fall," Rebecca corrected. "And starting to record. You might not have a completed album for another year, and _then_ you'll start the next tour cycle. They're in the same boat. It's going to a long time before you're juggling two conflicting tour schedules, so you've got a decent shot at making long distance work. Better than most of us."

"You and Lan Fan?" Roy asked. Rebecca had become pretty close to Decaydance over the summer and he was fairly sure Rebecca and Lan Fan were _something_ , but he didn't know how serious it was.

"Just friends," she said. "Really. She's great, but they're heading out on a big tour in Xing and Nihon after this. And I'm hung up on Riza, so. I'm going to kick Lan Fan's ass if she doesn't stay in touch, though. And if you guys are still recording next summer or decide to take some time off, I might go out with Decaydance for awhile. They're gonna need some security soon."

"That's good, I guess," Roy said. "I'm glad you two are okay."

"We're fine," Rebecca said breezily. "You and Ed can be fine, too. Just talk to him."

"Easier said than done," Roy said gloomily.

"Man up," Rebecca ordered him. "And help me convince Riza that we absolutely have to do a laundry run tonight because I'm sick of going commando under my jeans."

"That is way more than I wanted to know about you, Catalina," Roy told her.

Roy seriously considered taking Rebecca's advice and actually talking to Ed about their relationship. But then he thought about how they'd gotten together and decided that there was going to be a much simpler way to address the topic. It still took him a few days to work up the courage to do it.

"Hey guys," Roy said during the mid-afternoon band coffee run on their fifth-to-last Transmuted date. "I want to try something tonight during our encore."

"No ukulele covers," Alex said firmly. He was the band's undisputed master of unusual instruments (Roy still wanted to get him to play mandolin on an album; they could probably borrow Falman back to fill on on drums for live performances) and he took a deep, personal offense to Roy's ukulele skills.

"I'm not going to get any better if you won't let me practice," Roy pointed out on principle. "But that's not what I want to do. I want to try out a new song tonight. Acoustic."

"One of the ones you and Hughes were working on?" Jean asked.

"Sort of," Roy admitted. He ran his fingers through his bangs in agitation; it would probably be better to tell the guys what he was really doing. Get the mocking out of the way, make sure there were no surprises for the band later. "It's a song I've been working on with Ed."

"Wait, you guys have actually been writing together for real?" Fuery asked. Roy glared at him. "What? We figured it was just a euphemism. I don't know why you thought you needed one, though. It's not like we were going to barge in the back lounge when you two were locked up in there."

"That was...probably a good call, actually," Roy admitted. "We have done a decent amount of writing; we're probably both going to be getting some extra songwriting credits with our next albums. But there was definitely some naked songwriting. Literally and figuratively."

"While I'm glad to know you found love this summer," Alex said with an odd expression, sort of fond and disgusted at the same time. "I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we really, truly, do not need to know any details."

"Please just tell me you threw a blanket on the couch," Jean begged. "Lie to me if you have to."

Roy rolled his eyes. " _Anyway_ ," he continued like Fuery hadn't totally derailed him. "We were writing. I'd like to play one of the songs we worked on. It's kind of. Special."

"Is it a grand romantic gesture?" Alex asked eagerly and Roy wished for a moment that he hadn't decided to admit this. Alex was the world's biggest romantic and if this worked, Roy was never going to hear the end of it. The entire band (and Maes) would make fun of him forever if he went through with singing a love song about Edward Elric in public, but Alex would _also_ hold it up as an example of how romance wasn't dead. That might actually be worse then the teasing that was coming Roy's way.

"...Maybe," Roy tried to hedge. Alex made an incoherent joyous noise and swept him into a rib crushing hug.

"Never fear, we'll step back and support you in this wonderful moment! Oh, I hope Ed appreciates this! Perhaps Al and I can get video!"

"Please don't film me," Roy asked in a small voice. "A million fangirls are going to film it— whatever happens is going to live forever on YouTube. Please don't add to my potential humiliation."

Breda snorted, "What humiliation? The kid named his band in homage to you and looks at you with hearts and stars and shit in his eyes. He even likes you when you're wearing the same shorts for the fourth day in a row, sleep deprived, and we've run out of coffee. If that's not true love, I dunno what is."

Roy managed a small smile. "I hope you're right."

The rest of the afternoon passed oddly; time seemed to fluctuate even more than usual for tour. Roy spent time rehearsing the new song but, somehow, several hours had passed and he was still fucking things up. Far too soon, Jean was pulling him out of the back lounge to head out for their show.Roy played on autopilot; it probably wasn't his best show, but hopefully it wasn't too terrible, either.

Roy could feel himself shaking when he came back on stage for that night's encore. The entirety of the Alchemical Romantics team had gotten involved with this scheme. Jean and Kain had made sure that Ed was going to watch the show from side stage, and Riza had assigned people to wrangle Ed's bandmates in case they came along and did something, a _nything_.

At this point, Roy and the rest of his band were thoroughly familiar with Winry's tendency to rush in and hug people with her excitement and how Paninya expressed both positive and negative emotions with punches. He really didn't need the two of them rushing the stage to hug-punch him in approval or, worse, half-kill him with any form of disapproval. And Roy really, truly, did not want to bring out Al's brotherly protective instincts or get caught up in another group hug.

Denny had Roy's acoustic guitar prepped, so after he came off stage and drowned himself in half a bottle of water, Denny was there with the guitar, already tuned and ready for the pickup to get plugged in. Roy managed a small, nervous smile. Denny clapped him on the shoulder, Jean and Rebecca both gave him a thumbs up, Breda saluted him with a beer, Riza looked pretty pleased about things, and Alex already had a camera out. Roy took it; he couldn't ask for any more obvious support. With a deep breath he retook the stage.

"Hey guys," Roy said into his mic. Rebecca rushed on with a stool and Roy smiled in thanks, happy she'd found one at literally the last minute. He took a seat and adjusted the mic stand.

"Obviously we're doing something a little different tonight. I wanted to play a song I've been working on for a few weeks. It's still a little rough, definitely needs some work, but there's a lot of potential and I think it's worth continuing. So just give it a chance, okay? Bear with me, this is the first time I've played this in public."

Roy strummed his guitar; it was perfectly tuned and he was out of ways to stall now. He started playing the opening chords.

"When the moon fell in love with the sun, all was golden in the sky—"

It wasn't a complicated song lyrically, and without the full band or the piano and strings Roy and Ed were envisioning, it was a very stripped down acoustic performance. Roy was hoping that would count in his favor. At its core, their untitled song was a simple love story, and that's what he was trying to offer Ed: a relationship that was as unburdened by the bullshit in their lives as it could be, as sweet and true as this performance.

Roy opened his eyes when he finished playing and gave his fans a little half-bow. He finally dared to look for Ed and whatever his reaction was; Roy would have been too distracted by it earlier. Ed was standing just off stage right. Al was holding Ed's arm; he must have been preventing Ed from crashing that stage while he played, and Ed looked delighted and annoyed and imminently kissable.

"You crazy fucking bastard!" Ed yelled and Roy started to grin, he was still riding out the adrenaline from his earlier set, and then more from his stupid awesome grand romantic gesture and he felt like his was flying. Ed didn't seem like he was pissed and Roy finally noticed that the crowd was going nuts; the song was definitely a keeper. And so was his relationship, if he was reading Ed correctly.

Roy was beaming when he handed his guitar to Denny and he made a beeline for Ed as soon as he could.

"Your crazy fucking bastard though, right?' Roy asked. Ed made a wordless noise and finally yanked his arm free from his brother, rushing over to Roy. He didn't bother to answer Roy, too busy hauling Roy in for a kiss.

It was a _great_ kiss.

Roy dipped Ed back far enough for his ponytail to brush the ground and distantly, Roy heard something tear. When they came up for air, Roy realized it was his shirt. He just grinned stupidly at Ed.

"I liked that shirt," Roy said mildly.

"I like it better when it's gone," Ed snapped. Roy pulled him in for another kiss and he heard someone catcalling in the background.

It was Rebecca; she was saying something about Twitter. Riza started laughing, which was interesting enough to halt Roy's investigation of Ed's mouth.

"What?" Roy asked. He was still holding Ed; he loosened his grip and looked over towards the women. Riza was bent over, clutching her stomach with laughter while Rebecca supported her with one arm. Rebecca had her phone out high in her other hand and a few people were clustered around it.

"You didn't exactly make it backstage," Al said. "Like, half the crowd has a decent view of us right now."

"So?" Ed asked.

"So the Transmuted tags on Twitter and Tumblr are already a little bit flooded with bad photos of you two making out."

"Someone's probably writing a post about it right now for Spin," Winry said gleefully. "Oh my god, this is hilarious. Ed, I hope you told your mom and Izumi that you were dating Roy."

"Oh shit, seriously?" Ed said and for a split second, Roy had a horrible sinking feeling about this. They'd never discussed being public, mostly because they'd never discussed dating after Transmuted. "Okay, hang on, someone get a decent pic of us looking cute or whatever, I need something we can send to my mom. I don't need her first look at my boyfriend being a shitty camera pic of us practically fucking on stage."

"Allow me," Alex said, stepping forward with his camera already out. "I would be honored."

"Awesome," Ed said and pulled Roy in closer. Ed fit amazingly well under Roy's arm and for a change, he couldn't protest Roy nuzzling in and cuddling him a little; they were trying to make a good impression, after all.

"Perfect!" Alex said after a minute or so; he must have finally gotten a good photo. Roy didn't let Ed go, not yet. He did walk Ed further backstage so they'd have a little more privacy. Ed pulled him down for another kiss and Roy spent several very happy moments lost in Ed before someone cleared their throat.

"I'm happy for you guys," Paninya said. "You're adorable and shit. But Al would really like you to stop making out in front of him."

"And Al isn't telling us this in person why?" Roy asked. Actually, he hadn't seen Al in a little while, come to think of it.

"He's changing the bus code so you two can't spend the night making out in the lounge," Paninya replied promptly.

Ed swore and Roy started laughing. "We've got space for you on my bus," he assured Ed. "I probably have enough of your shirts that you can crash with us for a couple days if Al doesn't give you the new lock code tomorrow."

"I knew there was a reason I wanted to date you," Ed said, sounding pretty satisfied with things. Roy just drew him closer, slipping a hand into Ed's back pocket.

"C'mon," Roy said. "Let's catch Ouroboros' set and see if we can blow up Twitter again."


	17. Chapter 17

They blew up Twitter. _Actually_ blew it up, along with Instagram, Tumblr, and a couple music news sites. People outside of the Transmuted and indie rock bubbles were even talking about Ed and Roy.

It was all Al and Armstrong's fault. If Al wasn't such a fucking hypocrite and squeamish about seeing his brother making out with his boyfriend (which Al had done all tour!) and Armstrong wasn't such a romantic, no one would care that Ed was dating Roy. But Al had bribed their bandmates and Decaydance to keep the new bus code from Ed, so he had to crash with Roy's band and of fucking course, someone got pictures of them curled up sleeping together in the back lounge and Armstrong got it into his head to post the stupid photos to Alchemical Romantics' Instagram.

Ed was really fucking glad Transmuted was just about done, because he was kinda over touring for awhile and he was really fucking sick of getting asked about Roy during signings. There were a couple kids who mentioned how great it was that Ed liked guys and wasn't ashamed of it, which was kind of cool. It wasn't news to anyone who'd paid attention to Fullmetal Alchemist's press: all four of them were open and on record about being queer, but there was a difference between being out and single and being out and publically dating another guy.

At least Ed wasn't getting quite as much scrutiny as Roy, which was one of the perks of being in an "up and coming" band instead of being world-famous. No one cared that Ed liked guys, they just cared about who his boyfriend was. Roy _had_ mentioned several times over the years that he liked guys, but with no boyfriend and the scene full of stage gay, apparently no one had taken it seriously.

"I like you, but I hate your fans," Ed told Roy after he got back from hanging around the Noodles tent with his band. "I also hate Al."

"Did he finally give you the bus code?" Roy asked, holding an arm out so Ed could comfortably settle in next to him.

"No, but he annoyed Lan Fan enough that she decided whatever he was bribing her with wasn't working anymore, so I get to sleep in my actual bunk tonight."

"What I want to know," Breda said from where he and Fuery were sitting at the dinette table playing cards, "is why the hell he changed the door code and kept it from you for four days."

"The better question is how he got everyone else to go along with it," Kain added. "Because I can see your bandmates doing it as a joke and Decaydance is hilariously easy to bribe, but your merch guy, Maria, and Sheska? Did he have blackmail on them?"

"I keep telling everyone that Al's an evil mastermind, but they never believe me," Ed huffed. "Al's the nicest asshole you'll ever meet. It's great when he's on your side, but it fucking sucks when he decides to mess with you."

"But _why_ was he messing with you?" Kain asked. "Four days is a long time."

"Fuck if I know," Ed said with a shrug. "It could be revenge for something I did as a kid."

"I'm so glad I'm not in a band with family," Breda said.

"Aw, I thought we were your family," Roy said sweetly. Breda flipped him off, so Roy stuck his tongue out at him.

"See if I get you a birthday present now," Roy threatened.

Breda snorted, "You already bought it. Fuck off."

Roy and Breda bickered for a few more minutes; Ed tuned them out. He spent enough time on their bus that he had a pretty good sense of how Alchemical Romantics worked. Roy, Jean, and Denny had all alluded to how Alchemical Romantics could fight, pretty viciously it sounded like, but that was mostly during their writing and recording process. Ed had no plans to be around for that; he was going to be in East City figuring out how to write with Paninya and fighting with Winry about guitar parts. Plenty of conflict there; he didn't need another band's.

"So hey," Ed interrupted, since their argument about wrapping paper and gift bags wasn't that important. "Sheska suggested we do a joint blog post or something after Transmuted since our relationship is such a big deal or whatever."

"That might not be a bad idea," Breda said. "Jean thinks we should post something about how half the band is bisexual and we have no use for homophobic assholes at our shows."

"I'd rather do that than some kind of stupid press release," Roy said. "Actually, Ed, when are you guys heading into the studio?"

"Not for a couple of months. We need to do some more writing, why?"

Idly, Roy traced traced a few circles on Ed's shoulder, hard enough for the automail to register them.

"Maybe we could do some kind of interview with Sheska about the end of tour and what's going out with our respective albums and talk a little about how we met, take a little control over the story?"

"I've heard stupider ideas," Ed said. "It's just fucking weird that this is such a big deal."

"I'm sorry," Roy apologized. "I really didn't mean for something like this to happen so quickly."

"Yeah well, it was kinda inevitable," Ed said. "Al and Armstrong just sped it up. At least it was just us sleeping. My mom saw the pics and called me to tell us that we're adorable and she wants to meet you which is like, best case scenario."

Roy looked _terrified_ , so Ed patted him on the shoulder. "You'll be fine, my mom's nice."

"Your mom raised you. And _Alphonse_."

Ed rolled his eyes at Roy, "My mom _wants_ to like you. Winry's grandma though? _That_ is a whole nother story."

Roy paled and Ed smirked; he was right to be intimidated by Granny. Breda and Kain were shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation; Breda looked like he was trying to contain his snickering. Ed had no qualms about giving Roy's bandmates more ammunition to make fun of him; Roy was hilarious when he was being overdramatic and defensive about stupid stuff.

They finally stopped giving Roy shit when his band had to leave for their soundcheck. Ed thought about heading over with them, but he was hungry and wanted to see if Ling had eaten all of his food yet or not. Alchemical Romantics' set would be a good time to get food if Ling had. Ed wasn't quite over seeing them live; the whole band was stupidly talented and Roy was even hotter when he was performing but Ed wasn't going to kick himself for skipping the show, either. The next show, yeah, it was the second to last one. He's need to carefully plan out who he was watching after tonight. Ed was going to catch as many of his favorite bands as he could one last time, but he had time and right now he was more interested in shutting his stomach up. He could catch the end of Roy's set with whoever he found on the Noodles bus.

Winry and Lan Fan were playing Super Smash Bros in the front lounge when Ed walked onto the bus. Ed glared at Winry's head for a second, because she was a fucking traitor, then he announced his presence by covering her eyes and letting Lan Fan kick her ass on screen.

"Thanks Ed!" Lan Fan said brightly while Winry sputtered.

"You want to join my band Lan Fan? I'm looking for a new drummer, bassist, and lead guitarist."

"Maybe," Lan Fan said. "Ask me the next time one of the boys pisses me off."

"Awesome," Ed said. "I'm also taking suggestions for who else to replace my loser ex-bandmates with."

"Sheska plays guitar reasonably well," Lan Fan replied. "And Rebecca plays bass badly, but she's got a great voice, so we could make it work."

"You're my favorite," Ed informed her.

"Hey!" Winry said indignantly. "I'm not the one who kept changing the door codes!"

"You just went along with it," Ed snapped. "I'm not that pissed at you, because I know Al instigated it and I'm not actually going to complain about crashing with Roy, 'cause after tour it's going to be a couple weeks until we can hang out. But it was really fucking petty."

"I know," Winry said apologetically. "But it was funny the first night and then we realized tour was basically over and Al and Fletcher wanted some time together. We figured you and Roy would want some space and we have so many people on this bus and it would be super awkward to have you _and_ Al trying to get some quality time in with your boyfriends on the same bus, so. We maybe got a little carried away with the joke."

" _That_ was why you kept me locked out?"

Winry looked sheepish and Ed wasn't exactly sure how to respond.

"We're gonna have a band meeting about communication or something when we get home," Ed said with a glare. "Al could have _said_ he wanted to spend time with Fletcher instead of being a dick."

"Yeah, but being a dick was way funnier," Lan Fan said. "Plus we got Al to buy us dinner, so it worked out really well for everyone."

Ed sighed, then threw himself on the couch opposite the girls.

"I hate all of you," he informed them. "And I better still have food on the bus."

Lan Fan looked guilty and Ed sighed again, more dramatically this time. "I'm eating your food or you can buy me dinner."

"That's fair," Lan Fan agreed.

Before they could negotiate how she was covering Ed's dinner, Winry's phone rang. She checked who was calling and her eyes widened.

"Ed, grab Al and Paninya from the back lounge, it's Izumi."

Lan Fan stood up and gestured for Ed to stay. "I'll get them," she said. "I'm not going to interrupt band stuff."

Ed glared half-heartedly at Al and Paninya when they joined them up front, but he didn't say anything with Izumi on speaker.

"Have you collected everyone?" Izumi asked.

"Yeah, we're all here," Paninya said. "We're on the bus and it's pretty quiet. What's up?"

"I wanted to let you guys know that the label got in touch with me after reviewing the past month's numbers. They're going to increase your recording budget for the next album."

"Yes!" Al said, punching the air. "More session musicians!"

"Maybe," Izumi said. "I also got a phone call from Maes Hughes about producing your next album and he's not exactly cheap."

"Oh, really?" Al said excitedly. "We talked about it little when he was here, but it was all hypothetical. I didn't think he really wanted to work with us!"

"He does," Izumi confirmed. "I think you should do it, even it if means compromising a little with actual studio time or how many extra musicians you bring in. The catch is that you'll have to record in Central City, which means moving for at least a few months."

"I'm good with that," Ed said immediately. "And _not_ just because of Roy; Al and I are gonna have to renew our lease or move in like two months and Winry's place sucks. I think it might make more sense for all of us to move to Central. Finding subletters when we're on tour will be a hell of a lot easier."

"Short term leases might be an actual option there," Paninya added. "Way more people only need to be in the city for a couple months. It'd mean we'd need storage, but like. We already need that? And we know enough people in Central that would be easy to find a couch to crash on during short breaks or if we were waiting for a lease to start."

"That's a really good point," Winry said. She bit her lip and Ed could guess what she was thinking.

"We'll probably see our families about the same amount," he said. "Granny likes to travel and we'll actually be closer to Paninya's family. And a bunch of our friends."

"You can talk about it more later," Izumi said gently. She'd known them for years; she knew how close they were with their families. "There's no rush to move. There isn't even a rush to decide on a producer. You have plenty of time until we need to book a studio. I just wanted to let you know there's a lot of interest in your next album and almost as much support. You need a break before you do _anything_. I heard about what you've been up to, Alphonse Elric. You four need to get off tour and not see each other for awhile before someone commits homicide."

"I think you're right," Al admitted ruefully. "It's been a crazy couple of months."

"It's only going to get crazier from here," Izumi said. "Have fun with the last bit of Transmuted and then _take a fucking break_. I don't want to hear from you for at least three weeks. Visit your family, spend time with whoever you're dating, take a vacation, just get a break from each other and recharge. We'll hit the ground with your new album next month."

"Fine, fine," Paniya said breezily. "We're _rockstars_. We've got this."

They could practically see Izumi's eyeroll as she hung up on them, leaving the four of them sitting a little awkwardly in the front lounge.

"So Maes Hughes wants to produce us," Paninya started. "That's pretty fucking awesome."

"Can we just officially say we're going with him?" Al asked.

"We could call and make it officially official," Ed suggested. "Since I think we're all in agreement that he gets our sound really well and we know we get along with him."

"Is that crossing some kind of personal-professional line?" Winry asked. "I don't want to screw anything up, we haven't seen anything in writing yet."

"He called our manager and she told us. I think that's pretty damn official," Ed said. "And we've _met_ him. He's not actually Mr. Serious Professional Producer when he knows and likes the people he's working with. He's going to be delighted and tell us stories about his daughter and find some way to make fun of Roy."

The four of them exchanged looks one more time, then Al pulled his phone out.

"Hey, Maes? It's Alphonse Elric, we just got off the phone with our manager—yeah, hang on, let me put you on speaker."

"Hi guys!" Maes said cheerfully. "I'm guessing this is a business call."

"Little bit of pleasure, too," Ed said and Maes laughed.

"You're spending too much time with Roy," he told them. "So you heard I want to work on your next album."

"Yeah," Ed said. "We talked about it and it's pretty fucking unanimous: we definitely want you to produce us."

"Yay!" Maes cheered. "I can't wait to hear more of what you've been working on. Once you guys are in Central I want to see _everything_. We'll have fun! I have a basement studio we can play with. _And_ you can meet Gracia and Elysia!"

"It'll be awhile," Winry warned. "We really need a break and we'll have to figure out housing stuff. We haven't decided if we're just going to be in Central for the album or moving or anything. We just wanted to let you know we really want to work with you."

"I get it, you guys have been on the road for I don't even know how long now," Maes said seriously. "I don't want you burning out before I get my hands on you. Any of you are more than welcome to visit while you're on break. Actually, I'm kind of figuring I'll be seeing you at some point, Ed."

"Probably," Ed agreed. "Roy's got _plans_. He said there's a restaurant he really wants to take me to?"

"Oh, yeah, I think I know which one. You'll like it. Listen, while I have you guys on the phone I wanted to know Winry's thoughts about doing guest vocals on the next Alchemical Romantics album."

"Me?" Winry squeaked. "Really?"

"Yeah," Maes said; they heard him shuffling papers around. "I want to break Roy out of his box a little and there's a song idea of theirs that might work really well with a strong female vocal. Actually, looking at it again after I've listened to your album so much recently, I think Roy and Breda were influenced by you guys or Ed had a hand in this one, because this verse looks like it was practically written for you."

"It might have been," Ed interrupted. "Roy and I bounced a bunch of ideas off each other this summer, and I think we've each got at least one partially completed song that started out for one band but worked better stylistically for the other. So yeah, you might have something written with Winry's voice in mind."

"Well, then I'd _really_ like to get you on their album if the scheduling works out," Maes said. "We can talk about that more later. I'll bug Roy about sending you the verse and see what you think."

"I—okay," Winry said quietly. More confidently, she tried again. "Okay, yes, that sounds good. If Alchemical Romantics wants to do it and we can make it work, then yes, I'm interested."

"Awesome!" Maes said happily. "I actually have to run and pick Elysia up from karate, but we'll be in touch."

They said their goodbyes and Winry sat there, a little stunned.

"I'm probably going to be featured on the next Alchemical Romantics album," she said slowly, trying the idea out.

"Fuck yes you are," Ed told her. "I will kick Roy's ass if he tries to pass on you, it's a _great_ idea."

"That's a big deal," Winry said. "A huge deal."

"Not as big as we're going to be after our next album," Al told her. "It's happening."

The four of them looked at each other.

"Next time we play Transmuted we're headlining it," Ed declared.


End file.
